


Back to Life (Enzo/Salvatore OC)

by Iris_Dietrich



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-05 12:55:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 24,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15864057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iris_Dietrich/pseuds/Iris_Dietrich
Summary: Enzo awakens in an Augustine society cell to discover Henrietta Salvatore in the Cell over. This is their love story.A little info on Henrietta Salvatore and some retcons: Henrietta was the oldest Salvatore sibling and the first turned out of her siblings, years before the brothers actually.She was their defender when they were younger and a mother figure when they were older, Damon is aware she was turned into a vampire but Stefan never learned of her fate. She was thrown out and banished from their lives by Damon (before he was turned) after learning about the most horrible thing she ever did.





	1. Chapter 1

**Enzo POV:**

 I awaken in a large cell of some kind my body feels weakened and I am not sure how I have gotten where I am. I struggle to my feet teetering a bit and stumble a few feet to the bars trying to use my vampire strength to break free.  

Unfortunately, I am so weakened it does nothing, not wanting to admit defeat I keep at it for several minutes not wanting to admit I am stuck here at someone else's mercy. That was my favorite thing about becoming a vampire, my fate would never again be tied to someone else's benevolence.

 Growling in frustration I turn and slide down the bars collapsing to the ground when something to my left catches my eye. I turn and notice a small set of bars low to the ground in the wall dividing my cell from another.  In the other cell there is a body on the ground maybe I can get some answers. I shuffle over and reach through the bars touching the figure's shoulder which results in the figure violently snapping up and hurrying to the other side of her cell, I can see the figure is female now, she looks like death... eventually, her eyes seem to focus on me.

"I'm Enzo, where are we? What is this place?" I ask her gently not wanting to frighten my only source of information. She looks at me with her brows furrowed with a confused expression, if the situation wasn't so dire I might have commented on how cute it was... I decided to try again.

"Hello, do you speak English?" Finally, she speaks replying-

"I'm sorry I can't hear you right now.  Today was an ear nose and throat day... favoring my ears, I probably won't be fully healed till tomorrow possibly even the day after. But let's see if I can't carry on both sides of this conversation- _what's going on here, who are you, where are we? What is this place!_ "

She rattles off "my" questions quickly getting pretty damn close before taking in a deep breath to answer.

"Welcome to the Agustine Society where mad doctors using the excuse of furthering advancements in science, medicine, and healthcare, conduct barbaric experiments on vampires. 

But really they just spend their days torturing us, feeding their inner sadistic monster. _Where are we? What is this place?_ We are in hell and this is karma for everything bad thing you've ever done. My name is Henrietta Salvatore but friends call me Etta and unfortunately for you, I am the only friend you have."

 

**Etta's POV:**

I am awoken by screaming, I look over to the neighboring cell to find it empty. Uh, I guess my new friend is experiencing initiation, poor sod. On the plus side, it seems my ears have finally healed. 

I hate days like yesterday when a single area is their focus... as demented as it may sound it's better when there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to their actions even going from eyes to reproductive organs in a single session.  The pain is so spread out over large areas eventually it is like a sensory overload and some part of you is able to just shut off. 

I am not talking about flipping the "switch" as I've heard it described, no this is more like there is so much pain that even advanced vampire neurons can't process it all and then suddenly there is this static like on the radio just a white noise. 

I've learned how to find solace in that white noise but when they focus on one thing there is no other pain you can switch your focus to, there is no distracting and no escape, the white noise never comes there is no break from the pain, it is relentless. 

It is disturbing I am wishing my new friend greater amounts of pain but that is my wish for him I hope he finds his static.

**Enzo POV:**

Dumped in my cell again, I have never been more frustrated. The hate and anger I am filled with are consuming and yet I am unable to exercise any of my rage at those deserving, hell I'll take undeserving right now the distinction is not important. I could wipe towns off the bloody map and yet my body my SUPERNATURAL body is failing me all due to a fucking herb!

"Try counting," a voice says, I snap my eyes over to my "friend" as she sought fit to deem herself.

"Counting?" I bite out.

"Yes, the number of bars around us, dust particles in the air... the hair on your arms..." She goes to continue but I cut her off.

"Are you fucking kidding me? I am not a child who can't fall asleep don't tell me to count sheep!" I scream at her.

"I never said sheep, are you having hallucinations because there certainly isn't any sheep around here," she asks taking me literally I guess.

"Are you mad? Do you have any form of sense left in your head or has it all been cut out?" I scream again at her but her eyes pin me with that last one and I start to feel bad... not enough to apologize but there is a small amount of regret there. 

A silence hangs in the air between us for a while and I wonder who will break it.

"Two months," she breaks first, I don't know why but that gives me a small amount of satisfaction.

"It took two months," she continues "before I stopped pacing the cell, spitting piss and vinegar at anyone who came within my sight, even the guy who comes by with blood once a day... cost myself quite a few meals that way. It took two months before I stopped behaving like an animal caught in a trap desperate for escape..." 

She chuckles to herself at this mumbling something about how she wishes all it took to be free of here was to chew through a limb. She takes a breath before continuing... 

"and accepted where I was and that no one was coming for me and that all I was doing was just getting weaker. There is no escape, the only thing to do is endure, to not let them have the pleasure of seeing you struggle... I am just trying to help you get there."

I think about what she has said but I don't want to get there, there seems like giving up and that is something I won't do. Two months that's all the fight she had in her? I feel any respect I might have had for my "friend" start to slip away at that realization.

**Etta POV:**

I saw the look he gave me after that, it was disappointment. I can't remember the last time I disappointed someone. I didn't like it. Over the next two months, we rarely spoke... they would switch off taking turns getting us on one of their tables dumping us in our cells. He got used to my screams and I got used to his and slowly I saw the fight that consumed him those first couple of days slip away. 

It tore at me seeing that happen to someone else, It had happened before, I had other cellmates but it never really affected me this way before... seeing someone being broken, at least not until it happened to... to... _my goodness_ is it possible I don't know his name? 

Do I really only know him as 12144? I move myself closer to the barred window on the wall dividing our two cells and I gently place my hand on his shoulder. He quickly shakes it off clearly not wanting any of my comforts.

"Don't. Don't do that." He mumbles at me.

" I am sorry," I tell him sincerely but he chuckles and starts to work himself up.

"Sorry, sorry, yes I know. You think I don't see it? The pitying looks you've been giving me. I do! I do and I hate it! I hate what I have become, I am a sad excuse for a vampire, a sad excuse for a man! Do you know what I first thought of you when I got here? And now look at me every bit as pathetic as you. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!" 

He keeps repeating he hates it as he starts to pound his fist into the ground I try shouting at him to stop he is desiccating his hand, bones are splintering off... I have to stop this.

"Hey, hey look at me. Your NAME! Whats your name?" This halts him and he slowly looks over to me.

"My name? All this time and you don't know my name?" He asks me looking confused, he actually has a very cute look on his face suddenly he starts laughing and not the sardonic chuckle I've only ever heard from him but a real laugh and I start giggling too and soon we are both laughing hysterically.

After what felt like hours he finally gives me my answer. 

"Lorenzo, but friends call me Enzo and lucky for you I am your friend." He finishes by throwing a little smirk my way that doesn't fail to put a smile on my face.

 

 


	2. Getting to know you

**3rd Person POV:**

Ever since Enzo's breakdown Etta and he had been getting closer. Today they were both sitting against their dividing wall back to back.

"So love, how did you end up a guest here at this wonderful establishment?"

Etta smiles, "really? Are we at the point where we swap our sad stories?"

"No, not our sad stories, just how we arrived here at our adjoining suite."

"Oh alright, it's all a bit of a haze for me actually... I had, as I've heard it described _flipped my switch._ I believe it was 1897 or maybe 1898, the late 1890s definitely. I had been on a tare of sorts for close to three decades. My brother had disowned me and it had all gotten to be too much."

"I thought we weren't telling our sad stories."

Etta scoffed, "we're not, believe me, this isn't my sad story. Just explaining why I wasn't as mentally sharp as normal. I was in Tennessee celebrating its centennial greatly reducing the number of tourists... thought it'd be cute to reach my 100 marker and pretend the celebrations were all for me. I only reached 98 before I was captured."

"Ohh so close, that is a pity,"Enzo tells her.

"At the time I was furious. What about you?"

"Wait wait wait, before we move on to me... what were you counting from? The number of kills since you reached Tennessee, the number from that year? Certainly not the number since you flipped your switch you said that was 30 years," Enzo asked needing clarification.

Etta shook her head, "no it wasn't the number since I shut it all off."

"I was gonna say that didn't make much sense-"

Etta interrupted him explaining, "it was the number since I was turned."

"Not a bloody chance! How have you only killed 98 people in your existence? It isn't possible, pretty sure I knocked that out my first week."

"What can I say? Death bores me, I am by no means a saint mind you, I just usually practiced snatch eat _bring home as a new pet..._ rather than snatch eat erase."

Enzo clicks his tongue, "You naughty naughty girl."

"Alright enough stalling how about you?"

Enzo sighs, "yes yes fine, my turn. It was World War II and-

"Wait, there was a World War I?" Etta asks stunned.

"Oh, my dear you have missed so much."

Etta huffs not liking his tone, "yes alright! So it was World War II..."

"Yes, and I had enlisted,"

"As a vampire?"

"Yes as a vampire, do you plan to continue to interrupt me every other sentence, we may be in here forever but perhaps this story doesn't have to last quite as long."

"Okay I am sorry, please continue," Etta tells him promising to mind her manners.

"Ah thank you, that's very gracious of you," 

Etta mumbles "ass" under her breath but Enzo chooses to ignore the comment and continue on.

"Anyway yes I enlisted, blood was never in short supply, I couldn't die, and there was a sense of brotherhood out there I might have found lacking in my formative years. There was a doctor in one of the battlefield hospitals, he had seen my wounds heal themselves I had tried to compel him only to get a bloody needle in my neck. From there I assume he made sure I was knocked out and shipped over here in a coffin. And that is my story."

"I am sorry," Etta tells him.

"Why are you sorry?"

"You were actually doing something with your undead life, you shouldn't be in here."

"No one should be in here Etta, you don't deserve this any more than I do."

"I am not sure about that."

Etta sighed and placed her hand in sight of the barred opening between their two cells, Enzo placed his on top of hers and started to feel something for the girl whose hand he was holding.

**Enzo POV:**

Ever since our little bonding session, I haven't been able to stop studying her. Her pillowy lips, her piercing blue eyes I just want to swim in, her lithe little figure, her uncontrollable nest of hair don't know when the poor girl was last given a comb but it must have been quite a while, nevertheless it didn't detract from her beauty it just gave a little humor to her appearance. 

Her voice always seemed soft and delicate, it wrapped around you like a shiny ribbon on a present. I had never felt this way about anyone before. I went from orphan to destitute to abandoned yet again... to vampire to solider to a captive. I never really had any great lasting bonds with anyone but there was something about Etta. 

Something undeniable... she was so beautiful almost painfully so. It felt like a gift anytime I got to touch her, granted it was through bars and only a hand on top of a hand or shoulder, not the intimate caresses that I longed for. I wanted to take her in my arms... keep her safe and ravage her at the same time. 

Hearing her scream in pain became the worst torture they ever could have put me through. I'd spend all the time she was away from me in their filthy hands dreaming up my revenge. They would pay, I would make everyone who ever had anything to do with this wretched institution pay for causing her pain. 

No one as lovely, kind, beautiful, and strong as her should ever be put through this kind of pain and she was strong.  Despite what I first thought, she was the strongest person I ever could imagine... she had been in here for shy of fifty years and she hadn't flipped her switch again. 

 Apparently, all the pain they bombarded her with when she first arrived along with being scared had turned her humanity back on again but that wasn't what kept it on, that was all her.  She felt she deserved this that this was her punishment for the lives she'd taken but I had already learned her number and from a vampire's perspective it was practically microscopic especially given how long she had been on this earth.  

She claimed once not to be a saint but I wasn't so sure... at the very least she was an angle and I had been blessed with meeting her, I guess that's one thing I'd always be thankful to them for. Without these bastards, I might still be in London never having laid eyes on the magnificent creature that was Etta Salvatore.

It had only been three months but I knew I was in love with her and I prayed one day we'd get out of here so I could love her the way she deserved.

_*Silence*_

Oh please God let them be done with her for today. Please please bring her back to me.

"No, no please, please stop, please! PLEASE! NO!" I heard her beg, I had heard her scream countless times but she had never, not once begged, what the hell were they doing to her?! 

I heard another sound along with her continued no's... she was weeping another thing she never did. It alarmed me so I was up on my feet yelling for someone... anyone. I had to stop whatever she was going on next door. I thought her screams were torture but this, this sound of her crying in pain and scared, this might actually kill me.

"HEY!!!!! Come on haven't been seen all day starting to get lonely out here. Come on! COME ON!!!" but no one came... I never stopped screaming at the very least she could hear me and know she wasn't alone with whatever was being done to her. 

Finally, there was silence once again but it didn't feel as merciful as before it felt like it was the end of something and I was terrified to find out what.

They brought her back to the cell carrying her bridal style. Usually, we are dragged or limp ourselves over I have never seen her or experienced myself being carried. What the hell did they do to her?

"You sick son of a bitch, what have you done?" He looked over at me after depositing her in her cell.

"Just treated her like the animal she is," he said with a little smirk.

"I     will     kill     you," I say to him never having meant anything more in my life. 

He smirks at me a little while longer before walking away. I look over to her and try calling out her name, she's too far from the bars and I can't reach her. I don't know what to do. 

"Come on pretty girl let me see you're alright."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I picture Etta as Miranda Kerr, but feel free to cast whoever you want.


	3. A Promise

_Come on pretty girl let me see you're alright._

**Etta POV:**

I let his words hang there for a while, I couldn't answer I couldn't look at him, If I did I would break... shatter beyond repair.

"Come on gorgeous, I know you can hear me. At least turn over so I can see you...

.

.

.

please."

Slowly I start to roll my body over.

"That's it, come on." He encourages gently until I am finally facing him.

"What happened in there today beautiful?" He asks and I start tearing up,

"I I can't, please I don't... I can't" Great now I am a blubbering mess.

"It's alright love, hey shh shh shh, it's all gonna be alright."

"No, no it won't." I'm crying full stop now, unable to hold it in any longer. He reaches through the bars just barely getting ahold of my sleeve between his index and middle fingertips, he swiftly pulls me as close to him as possible kissing my forehead through the bars and stroking my hair to calm me down. I look to him pleadingly.

"Promise me, pro pr promise me you won't shut it off, I don't want to be alone," I tell him, "I can't do this without you." I am barely able to get through my plea before bursting into tears again.

He wraps both hands around one of mine and looks me straight in the eyes,

"I promise you, I won't leave you. We are going to get out of here together I promise, I promise." He kisses my knuckles before reaching through the bars again to stroke my hair. 

That's how I fall asleep.

**Enzo POV:**

I meant it, I hadn't worked out how yet but I will get us out of here and whatever they did to her in that room today they will pay for a million times over.


	4. New Year's Eve, Augustine

**Enzo POV:**

I have been at Augustine for approximately eight months and today is New Year's Eve.  Etta tells me today is the one day a year they dress us up and let us out of our cells for something other than torture. 

Apparently we get the honor of entertaining rich donors that help keep this wonderful society rolling.  At first I was certain this was our chance to escape but Etta quickly dashed those hopes by informing me of the massive amounts of vervain they introduce into our systems before wheeling us out in golden cages. 

Still I will use this opportunity as a recon mission I will gather necessary information so one day this will be our party. We will ring in the New Year dancing in their blood. I am determined to stay sharp tonight no matter how much bloody vervain they give me.

All thoughts of staying sharp are temporarily put on hold as Etta is walked back to her cell, my God she's gorgeous. They have her hair in soft curls framing her lovely face and a pale pink dress that shows off those incredible legs of hers. She has my mouth watering as I imagine _devouring_ her. A growl escapes my lips that catches her attention. She hesitates before giving me a flirty smile.

"Now don't tell me you actually miss that rats nest that used to be atop my head?" 

I smirk, I love this woman I can freely admit that at least to myself anyway, and flirty banter and sexual tension has been growing exponentially these last couple of months but there is a fear in her whenever we start getting close to a serious note. 

I know she has to have feelings for me, I mean it's not like I am facing stiff competition around here but something is holding her back and it makes me want to smash through these bars and take her until she relents.  Lets go of whatever she is afraid of and finally gives herself to me fully- body... soul... heart.  I will have her, own her, consume her. I choke back another growl that's threatening to come out and reply,

"Oh I don't know it kind of became a pet of sorts I think I'll miss the little fellow."

She smiles, "well, you did spend a lot of time petting it."

"I think we both know that's not what I wish to be petting." Her pupils dilate at this and I see her swallow... I smirk thinking perhaps I have made her mouth water as well. Oh if you only knew the things I plan to do to you once we are out of here.

 

**Etta POV:**

We are put in separate cages and I want to weep, I would give anything to find myself in Enzo's arms just once. This yearning I have for him... it's painful, it's like my soul is calling out for him and he is always just out of reach.  

It seems the highest injustice I can't wrap myself around him but I push down those feelings, I don't want to break down again and have him so desperate to comfort me and not be able to. I don't want to do that to him again so I pull myself together and mask any disappointment of seeing him put in a separate cage. 

I decided to show my juvenile side to distract him from looking closer at me, I stick my tongue out at him.  It makes his face break out in the biggest smile I've seen and it's like a healing balm for my tortured soul knowing I caused him to have that reaction. I fear I am in love with him. I am in love with Lorenzo St. John and I hate it because I know I will never be deserving of him, not after what I've done.

These past eight months we have gotten to know a lot about each other. I know his favorite color is emerald green, he loves Tennessee Williams who's a playwright apparently, he likes pistachios, bourbon, he plays the guitar and dreamed of growing up to be a famous singer/musician. 

I keep begging him to sing to me and for a while, I thought it would never happen but it turns out he was saving it as a Christmas present. You see how can I not love him. I love him so much I could drown in the amount of love I have for him and some days it feels like I do. Nevertheless even growing closer these months we haven't exchanged our "sad stories" and I am afraid once he knows he won't be able to look at me the same way again and I fear that might actually kill me.

 

**Enzo POV:**

We are finally presented to the boozed-up crowd to ohh and ahh over how easily our wounds can heal and how a drop of our blood can even heal them. Unfortunately, I don't think the great doctor Whitmore has to worry about a lack of donations this year. I have been looking all evening for a way to escape and I have come up with nothing. 

The bars on our cages are vervained, even when we are taken out of the cage we are in shackles... _wait the shackles aren't vervained_  ... if there was some way to quietly build up strength we might be able to break free. 

I am put back in my cage but I can't help the smirk upon my face, o _h Doctor Whitmore how I look forward to this day next year._

So quietly I barely hear her with my heightened hearing, Etta asks me why I am smiling to which I am greatly pleased to whisper back,

"I believe I have a plan."


	5. Maggie

**Etta POV:**

After New Years Enzo told me his plan to combine blood rations so one of us could build up strength so next year we might escape, in all honesty it didn't have me all that hopeful but I couldn't voice that to him this idea had breathed life into him and I didn't want to be the one to take that away. 

Nevertheless two shots of blood a day wasn't going to make much difference plus we would be losing any blood we drank as soon as they got us on that table I didn't see the point but I still gave him my rations keeping a drop here and there so I didn't desiccate. He tried to be chivalrous and offered to make me the leader of our escape but I appealed to his military mind that given how long I had been in here he would be stronger no matter what and was our best shot.

Months had passed and it was now autumn. Any little bit of strength meeting Enzo had given me the past year and a half had drained out of me. Starving myself even more than what they already were doing to us had chocked the last bit of morale out of me. 

To say I was cranky would be like calling Jack the Ripper brash, you needed a whole new word for _understatement_ because that was no longer cutting it. And then in comes Maggie James, human, seemingly sweet, never irritated, pleasant and patient and definitely had eyes for Enzo. I wanted to kill her. What was worse was that Enzo seemed to have eyes for her as well... now _that_ had me wanting to torture her. I wanted to pick the flesh off her body piece by piece, strip her bones of muscle, all the while keeping her alive until the very last moment.

 

**Enzo POV:**

I was happy, yes getting tortured every other day wasn't fun but I had a plan and I had a girl I was in love with. We would get out of here enact our revenge and then ride off into the sunset... I was practically giddy. 

For the plan to work I had to act as starved and weakened as I ought to be so I just took my cues from Etta. My poor girl was suffering but it was for the greater good and it felt nice to know she believed in me so that she gave me her rations of blood when she was clearly in so much agony going without. She tried being strong at first but this last month I could tell she was at the end of her rope.

Everything set her off, not that she had the energy to truly go off on me but if looks could kill I would be dead about 18 times a day. I told her to hang in there that we were so close know only another four and a half more months and we'd be out of here but she would just stare at me blankly.

We were soon introduced to an associate of Dr. Whitmore, a Maggie James. She had lovely smooth mocha skin, shapely legs, and best of all she smelled quite a deal better than either Etta or I. It became clear to me that she didn't truly understand what was going on here. She would sit on an office chair behind a chalk like they drew for her so she wouldn't be getting too close to us to grab, and she just took notes observing the vampires in their cages. We slowly built up a banter between us, it was nice having someone to talk to again, Etta, bless her, was in too much pain to talk unless it was really necessary.

"Ah here comes my favorite girl, how are you today Maggie?"

"I'm doing fine Mr. St. John." She said with a shy smile. _Hmm, guess I still got it._

"Please love, call me Enzo," I replied throwing her my little smirk I could tell made her go weak in the knees. I heard Etta start breathing like a dragon in a cave as she seemed to pull her self out of the shadows of her cell.

"Ah decide to come out of your corner today mate?" as soon as I addressed her as mate you could hear a growl coming from the back of her throat. Oh, my kitten was feeling feisty today, thank God I was starting to worry if she was even still in there or not. I couldn't help the smile when I saw how Maggie visibly shrank back in her chair once Etta had her sight set on her.

"See what I'm left here with when you go?" I teasingly said to Maggie who visibly gulped and tried to look anywhere but back on Etta who unfortunately for me had chosen a new subject for her gaze but I just blew her a kiss. That seemed to finally push her over the edge and she got a sadistic little smirk on her face... _perhaps I went too far._

"So Maggie what have you observed about us so far?" Etta croaked out.

"Uh uhmm."

"I mean you have been taking notes now for two weeks surely you've learned something about our species to report back to Dr. Whitmore with. Care to share?"

Maggie was actually starting to tremble with fear and look to me for reassurance. I gave her a soft smile but it wasn't really for her... seeing the fear my girl could strike in a human was a major turn on and I was loving this.

"Come on, surely you can speak you do it often enough with Enzo and its, not like your so blood starved your veins have started to rub together like sandpaper trying desperately to scrape together even the tiniest bit of blood to pump making even the smallest movement you make excruciating. So come on share with the class what wonders you have discovered."

"Uh umm well..." she just stuttered some more trying to look through her notes for something to say to get her out of this.

"What? Vampire got your tongue? 'Cause I sure know I would like to have it." At that, she chomped her teeth through the bars a bit and had Maggie running to the nearest exit.

"Was that really necessary?" I ask.

"You think she is sweet, kind, didn't deserve to have the big bad vampire scare her? You think she's not EXACTLY like Dr. Whitmore and his fellows."

"Come on you know she's not like them, she probably doesn't even know."

"No, no, your right she's not like them, She's worse. She clearly is able to access her emotions she is capable of decency and empathy which we both know _they_ do not have yet she does _nothing!_ She just sits there taking notes. You think she doesn't know? That's because she doesn't  want to know. 

If all they were doing was observing us why not at least provide us with a cot like you would even a common criminal? We are less then that to them, less then animals and if her keen observation skills where unable to pick that up she deserves any misfortune she will undoubtedly encounter spending her days with the deranged men who run this place. 

But she just smiles and keeps her head in those pretty little clouds so she doesn't have to acknowledge what it is she is silently condoning. She is complicit and I find it revolting. To be an accomplice to a crime but not the actual perpetrator doesn't make her innocent- it makes her spineless and stupid." 

That has me rethinking what I previously thought of lovely, charming, Maggie... but I don't get to think too long on it as she quickly turns her ire at me. But she's not able to get very far before she starts violently coughing, she lets out a squeak of pain because she's not able to scream and I see her spit something up... Oh my God, I think she has coughed up part of her lung her insides are suffering so.

"Hey, come on love, come here." I bite into my wrist and held it out for her. She is crying and shaking her head.

"No, no it'll defeat everything we've done so far."

"Everything you've done so far, and look at you. You are letting your insides tear themselves apart for me. Please come here, drink." She slowly nods her head and scoots herself over for me. I hold my wrist up again through the bars and she licks and quickly attaches taking a deep pull of my blood and then two more small ones. She tries to pull back but I held her head in my hands and wait for her to open her eyes so I can stare into her beautiful blue pools when I say this.

"Hey, come on look at me, there you go. I love you." She shuts her eyes at this and tries to shake her head but I continue on.

"Yes. I love you Henrietta Salvatore and I am sorry for being an insensitive prick." She gives me a tiny smile at prick so I know I'm getting somewhere.

"I think a part of me wanted to annoy you so much you started to fight again I was afraid I was losing you to yourself, to the hunger. I just wanted you to come back but I promise you I will never look at another woman the way I look at you. You are it for me. I love you." 

I look down to her lips and I finally kiss my goddess. Its perfect, well it'd be more perfect if it weren't for the bars in the way. She starts to smile into the kiss and then she pulls away slightly.

"I love you... mate."

Alright, guess I deserved that.


	6. Wake

**Enzo POV:**

I wake up and my nose fills with her scent. Granted there's sweat, old blood, dank dungeon mixed in but she's still there... bergamot and jasmine are the dominant notes. I would give anything to rip away these bars that separate us and bury my nose deep into her neck and inhale her sweet scent. 

I look over her face she's still a slumber thankfully escaping our dire reality for a few more moments. I know I should let her sleep but I can't help myself I reach through the bars and trace her lips with my finger. The sips of my blood I convinced her to take yesterday seem to have given life back to them. They are no longer dry and cracked but the pouty rose petals I find so irresistible.  She stirs a bit shifting on the ground trying to get comfortable, she should be on a bed not on this miserable cold floor. I lean in close and whisper-

"I promise we will get out of here..." I start to stroke her hair even though my arm is limited in movement from the bars.

"...we will have the largest plushiest bed and you will be all tucked up and warm every night. I love you."

I can see her eyes dancing behind her eyelids as she drags them open into sleepy little slits. She places a kiss on the pad of my thumb and whispers her love to me in return before she gets a little mischievous smirk on her, whatever is going on in that pretty head of hers has her more alert now. 

"I hope that's not the only thing you have planned for us in this big fancy bed of ours." She uses a seductive tone to her voice I haven't ever heard from her before and god it has me groaning.

"You have no idea what you are in for the _second_ there aren't bars separating us," I reply in my own bedroom voice which granted isn't that different from my normal voice but it seems to have the desired effect when my girl starts rubbing her thighs together. 

I drill my eyes right into hers as I drag my hand back through the bars to put it back through a couple slots over trailing up her leg. I never break eye contact with her. 

I reach my other hand through and grab the back of her neck roughly pulling her as close as possible. I stare down into her glorious blue pools which have darkened considerably. Seeing that look in her eyes has me shifting my own position trying to allow for what is growing between my legs. 

The tips of my fingers slowly pull the buttons free on the trousers she's wearing and finally, I can feel the skin of her stomach. I bite down on my lip at the sensation of her bare skin my eyes still attached to hers I see her lips part as she takes in a breath and I would give anything to be able to swoop down and claim those lips in mine. My fingers now down her pants are dancing along her smooth upper thighs I so wish I was able to wrap around my neck. 

Instead, I tease her getting as close as possible to where I know she wants me before pulling away and continuing the slow sensual dance on her thighs. Her breathing is getting closer to pants and I know she's desperate for me. I wish we had a more intimate setting and I was able to take her fully but I just promise to make it up to her when we are free of this place.

I finally allow my fingers to reach her warm wet core. A low growl escapes my lips and my love tilts her head back at the sensation baring her neck to me. That has my teeth cutting through my gums wishing I could taste her in more than just one way. I drag two fingers around her lower lips in a circular motion a couple times before my middle finger teases her folds open bridging her opening pushing in and pulling out but never going past my first knuckle. I bring my thumb into this now applying a soft pressure to her tiny bundle of nerves. 

That has her hand shooting out and grabbing onto one of the bars while her other holds onto my wrist that's still cradling her neck. She starts rocking her hips now giving me a rhythm to play off of, I wait four more rocks before sinking my full finger into her causing a gasp to leave her luscious lips and her eyes to close as she savors the sensation. Shortly after I add another finger laying off playing with her clit focusing on just pumping my fingers into her and watching the rise and fall of her chest. 

I add a third finger increasing my pace to an almost supernatural degree before finally allowing my thumb back up rubbing her so fiercely in tandem with fingers fucking her it's not long before she completely falls apart at my hands.

I commit everything about her right now to memory, her uneven breathing, the blush that has come up her neck to her face, clothes disheveled, hair messed. She's perfect and now I am so hard it's fucking painful. 

She comes back to herself and looks over to me, her eyes scan down to find the bulge in my trousers she shifts her body and is about to reach through the bars when a guard comes and takes me out of my cell. I hate the look that befalls her face but I give her a nod that I'll be alright.

_Of all the bloody times for this._


	7. Escape

**Enzo POV:**

It was Etta's turn on the table now and I had to sit here and listen to her screams. We had actually made a game of it though basically, you add on a letter to the beginning of your screams and the non tortured party had to use those letters to name the book you where thinking of. So far I had deciphered an _N, O, T, E, S, F, R, O_... Notes from Underground perhaps by Fyodor Dostoyevsky... my girl does seem to have a thing for Russian writers. 

It is then that Maggie comes racing towards me.  Huh, this might be interesting. Apparently, the poor girl thought herself in love with me and she wanted to help me escape. I try to control the sinister smile creeping across my face and turn it slightly more lovingly. I hear Etta scream again... uh she's already at _d_. Maggie takes me through her plan. 

"It's the only way to get you out of here." She tells me apparently her plan is for me to turn her into a vampire and it is completely idiotic. Where is she getting the human blood to complete the transition? Does she think if I break her neck to kill her after giving her my blood she'll only be out for a tidy fifteen?

I will have to tell Etta she was wrong about Maggie she isn't willfully ignorant or hiding her head in the sand she is honestly just this stupid. It takes a lot for me not to roll my eyes at her and keep and annoyed expressions off my face.

"I'll save you, we'll run away together, don't you want to be with me?" I catch sight of her vervain bracelet and an idea comes to me.

I reply "More than anything," and ask her to come closer I snatch the bracelet off her wrist and look deep into her eyes. I compel her to come back at dark and start a fire quickly informing the authorities she heard the sound of children in distress coming from downstairs. I tell her to think this is how we will be together and that she is positive of my love for her and is committed to seeing me free from this prison.

She goes to rush off but I remind her of her bracelet she "dropped," she races back to me placing a quick kiss on my lips and is gone. Perhaps we won't have to wait till the New Year after all.

**Etta POV:**

I am brought back to my cell and notice the goofy look Enzo is giving me.

"What is that face?" He shrugs like he doesn't know what I'm talking about... he is giving me this stupid loving gaze that is so unlike him and yet it tickles me.

"Just rest for now darling, it'll all be over soon." He says.

"What is that supposed to mean?" He tells me not to worry about it and I'm too drained from my torture session to argue with him. Before I pass out I hear the cocky bastard make fun of my novel title.

"Just saying something a bit harder next time darling, and technically it isn't even a novel it was a collection of short stories if my memory serves."

"Yeah yeah yeah." I barely get the last yeah out before I can no longer hold my eyelids open.

                          ..........................................................................................

The sound of a siren wakes me up. I look to Enzo and he smirks at me,

"Get ready darling," he tells me.

Things happen quickly from there before I know it men are using bolt cutters to free us. I am slung over someone's shoulder and carried outside. Oh my God, I am outside! the level of disbelief yet total euphoria is overwhelming but no sooner am I about to celebrate than an oxygen mask is placed over my nose and mouth. But it's not oxygen its vervain I try to get it off but I am shoved into an ambulance and injected with more until I pass out.

 


	8. Gone Girl

**Enzo POV:**

I woke up but couldn't move... I realized I was strapped down... _NO. NO!_ I look all around but I don't recognize the room I'm in.

"Ah good, you're finally awake." Dr. Whitmore waltzes in.

"What happened, where am I?"

"Well, the fire department condemned our building so we're having to improvise a little here whilst the building undergoes some repairs. 

Hmm, you seem confused. Did you really think you would escape? That any call regarding MY BUSINESS in this town isn't direct right back to me! That I wouldn't find you out and squash you like the BUG YOU ARE! Do you have any idea the money you've cost us the years you have set back our research!"

He takes a deep breath trying to calm himself before continuing.

"Nevertheless what's done is done and we will all have to move on but I think soon you will realize what you did didn't only cost me and my associates, no it has cost you as well in what I am sure will be untold amounts. And oh how I will relish in your misfortune."

I process what he just said and suddenly panic attacks me.

"Etta? Etta!" I try calling out for her but nothing.

"You bastard what have you done with her?"

"Well, we had to pay for all of the fire expenses somehow. A donor has had his eye on her for some time always seeing her at our New Years functions and when the opportunity presented itself he was happy to make a very generous offer for her." He leans in close to me and I want nothing more than to use my teeth to tear the flesh off his face. He whispers into my ear,

"You will _never_ see her again." He stands up now still looking into my eyes before slowly walking away.

"No... no. Etta! Etta! ETTA!" I cry out for her but I fear she is... she is gone.


	9. Cells

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most is lifted from TVD scripts, but more original heavy content is coming.

** Time jump, it's now 2013 and Damon is about to get captured... again. **

"Why does this say 12144?"

"What do you care?" Wes replies,

"Because I was 20151"

"Hang on you were an Augustine Vampire?"

Damon grimaces, "Augustine... I haven't heard that name in decades. I thought you guys shut down 60 years ago."

"You thought wrong."

"You know how I said I wasn't gonna kill you? I lied," but before Damon can make a move Wes breaks free pushing a red button on his way out of the lab.

"Atomized Vervain, when working with vampires you can never be too careful. I am sure Agustine will be thrilled to have you back."

Damon passes out only to awaken in a cell, not just any cell but his own. He finds his initials carved into the wall and starts panicking.

** Flashback 1953 **

_The Salvatore boarding house_  

"Hey. I'm looking for Joseph Salvatore," Damon says strolling in,

"You found him."

Damon looks around, "love what you've done with the place. If this whole boarding house thing doesn't pan out, you can always turn it into a high-class brothel."

"Glad you got my telegram. I haven't heard from Stefan yet, but I'm hoping he'll be here soon. When's the last time you two spoke?"

"Well, he doesn't call, he doesn't write. Of course, neither do I. In all fairness, I am the one that abandoned him on a train platform in the middle of World War II."

"Well, there's always time to be a better man."

Damon shrugs, "eh, not sure I got one of those in me."

As Damon looks away Joseph grabs a syringe from the table and stabs Damon's wrist. 

"Sorry about the vervain, Damon. The money was too good to pass up."

His anger outweighing the pain and dizziness Damon draws his strength, spills the liquid on the floor and stabs the glass his was holding into Joseph's neck. Someone else comes into the room then.

"Well, now I won't have to pay him," 

"Who the hell are you?"

The man picks up the syringe, refills it.

"I'll be your doctor from now on," he says ominously.

** 2013 **

Damon is sitting inside his cell on the floor with his back against the stone wall and Dr. Wes is watching him writing things down from outside the bars.

"Just so you know, didn't end well for the last Augustines. You're inviting bad karma in by holding me here."

"Is that what you told Dr. Whitmore?" Wes asks,

"Dr. Whitmore wasn't much for conversation. So you Augustine freaks are still at it? Eye exams and that sort of thing?"

"Jesse was proof that my research goes far beyond that. I trained him to crave vampire blood instead of human blood. Now, I'm ready to take my research to the next level."

** Elena and Aaron are in Whitmore House **

"That's my dad," Elena says noticing him in a large group portrait.

Wes uses this as his cue to announce himself.

"Grayson Gilbert was one of the best doctors the Augustines ever had."

Elena continues to study the picture and Wes uses this opportunity to stab her in the neck with vervain causing her to pass out.

"I'm glad he didn't live to see this."

** Back to the Cells **

"Come on, Elena. Wake up," Damon says to Elena, his voice tender and full of concern.

Elena slowly comes to now on the floor of her own cell.

"Hey."

"Damon?" Elena asks alarmed trying to reach for him, "Are you-"

"I'm fine. Wes injected you with vervain. Maybe when it wears off, we'll be able to break out of here."

Elena looks around, "what the hell is going on? Why are you here? Why am I here?"

Damon looks down sadly, "Wes is carrying out the grand Augustine tradition. Getting his kicks off vampire torture."

"Did he tell you that?"

Damon shakes his head, "He didn't have to. I've been here before. Someone in my family sold me out to the Augustines in 1953. Every day, this nut job Dr. Whitmore tortured us, cut into us, took pieces of our eyes out, pushed us to every limit he could imagine, and he had quite the imagination... kept me in this very cell and don't think I haven't appreciated the irony."

"How long were you here?"

"Five years, give or take."

Elena looks bewildered, "Damon, how did you not go crazy?"

"Believe it or not, I made a friend."

** The Cells 1953 **

"Welcome. Dr. Whitmore never gets tired of watching us vampire heal, but he gives us one glass of blood per day, just enough to keep us alive. Pick yourself up, soldier. My name's Enzo." **  
**

** The Cells 2013 **

"He'd been here for ten years by the time I joined the party."

** The Cells 1953 **

_Damon chugs down his glass of blood._

"You're doing it wrong. " Enzo informs him taking just a small sip from his glass.

"You're living for the moment. You need to live for the future." He goes on to explain.

"What future?" Replies Damon already beaten down.

"The one where you get your revenge. For instance, in my future, my revenge will start with killing Whitmore's dog and mailing it to his house postage due. Go on. Picture your revenge. Use your imagination."

Damon thinks for a minute.

"I can see it." He replies using a rock to carve into the cell's rock wall.

** The Cells 2013 **

"Damon, Wes knew my dad. They worked together. He said that my dad was an Augustine, too. I know that my dad was a vampire hunter, but he was also the town doctor. He was kind and gentle and loving. He wouldn't be part of a place that would cut your eyes out."

"People are full of surprises," Damon replies regretfully.

Elena buries her head in her arms and starts to cry.

"Oh, hey. I am so, so sorry I got you caught up in this." He reaches for her hand through the bars separating them.

"Hey. Look at me. Hey." He gets her to look up, "but I promise you I will get you out of here, okay? Okay? I'll get you out of here."


	10. Better or Worse

"Damon, how did you survive all those years?" Elena asks Damon, not being able to imagine surviving here for a week much less five years.

** Flashback 1953 **

"You much of a sports fan, Damon?" Enzo asks,

Damon remains unresponsive.

"No. Neither am I. Any other interests? Fine wines, travel, cars?"

 _He looks over to Damon to see if he is making any progress. _"__ I'm partial to Jaguars myself, convertibles, the kind you take on a Sunday drive to impress a pretty girl. Ever done that?"

"Once or twice." Damon finally responds. It amuses Enzo that this was the key to getting Damon to open up- girls.

"Oh, come now. Got to be more than that."

"Well, the girl I was trying to impress was more of _(groans in pain)_ a horse and carriage type girl."

Enzo smirks, "what, just one girl?"

"Never met another one like her."

"Well, fair enough."

 _"_ What about you? Any pretty girls?" Damon asks,

"Eh, too many to count." _He says flippantly before deciding to be serious. "_ Actually, there was one. Her name was Henrietta Salvatore."

"Wait, what?" Damon exclaimed completely caught off guard hearing the name after so long.

"Henrietta Salvatore... love of my life, well I suppose existence is more accurate... You alright there mate?" Enzo asked not realizing who Damon was.

"You said Salvatore right?"

"Yeeaah" Enzo draws out the word a bit confused by Damon's reaction.

"Allow me to properly introduce myself," Damon reaches his hand through the bars "Damon Salvatore."

"Oh please tell me I haven't stolen the heart of your wife mate, that would make for some very awkward living conditions."

Damon's jaw twitches, "not wife... sister."

Enzo thinks for a moment, "I can't decide if that's better or worse."

"Little bit of both I think. So good ole Henrietta Salvatore still alive and kicking eh?"

"I certainly pray to whatever power is out there that she is. And if not let's just say I fear for the state the world will find itself in once I rid myself of this cage."

"And how did you two crazy kids meet?"

"Here of all places, if you can believe it."

"Huh sounds romantic."

Enzo smiles, "it was actually. I have never met any creature like her,  she was covered in contradictions... she possessed an innocence you just don't see anymore but she could also be devious cut throat and ferocious. She was smart but not in an annoying know it all way, no she had a wisdom that quietly crept up on you. And my god was she sexy-"

"Alright! I get the picture."

"Hm sorry about that mate forgot I was talking to her brother there."

Damon grimaced, "yeah got that. So how'd it all go wrong I don't see her anywhere here."

"We had a plan to get out of here, to escape. All year she had been giving me her blood rations only taking a drop or two to not desiccate, the plan was to build up my strength so come New Years the one day a year they used to trot us on out in front of rich donors I would have been able to break us free. 

She was in so much pain going without for so long and we were only a few months shy but then I jumped the gun. There was this girl, Maggie, who used to come down and observe us taking notes for the good doctor. She had a bit of a crush on me which angered Etta to no end but I thought I could use it to get us free. 

You can't comprehend what it is like to hear the desperate screams of the one you love over and over again and not be able to help her. To have to watch her wither away day after day until she can't move or speak because she's in so much pain. No one can relate to what that does to a man until they find themselves in that situation. 

There is no torture comparable to that and believe me, I certainly qualify as an expert on that. Anyway because I was stronger from drinking Etta's blood rations I was able to compel Maggie to help us. She set fire to the building and called the authorities alerting them to our position. We were free for a glorious fifteen seconds before reality came crashing back in. 

Turns out anytime one of the authorities gets a tip about the Whitmore house one of the docs here gets a heads up. I was back on that table in no time and Etta... she was gone. They told me they sold her to one of their donors that he was happy to pay a pretty penny for her." 

Enzo has to stop a moment because he is so filled with rage. "Never saw her again."

Damon looks away from Enzo but manages to say, "sorry."

** Flash Forward: **

"Okay. Stefan is gonna figure this out. When you don't come home and no one hears from me, he will, he will find us," Elena says trying to keep her panic at bay,

"Points for optimism. But unfortunately, Stefan doesn't even know this place exists," Damon tells her.

"But you were here for 5 years."

"Yeah, and in the first year, I'd thought he'd rescue me. He didn't. Once I escaped, there was no point in giving him more to feel guilty about, so I never told him what happened here. I never told anyone."

"Yeah, but you did escape. How did you do it?" Elena asks desperately to see a way out of their current situation.

"Enzo would speak about a golden age of the Augustine society where every year on New Year's Eve they would spiffy up their captives and parade them through a little cocktail party with a vampire buffet on the side. 

After being weakened from vervain injections, half-starved from living on a glass of blood a day, chained up like animals. This little annual shindig is where Dr. Whitmore got to show all of his Augustine friends what he'd found in his research.

But ever since Enzo's bout with pyromania they had tightened the purse strings no more fancy duds not for us anyway and it wasn't a yearly event anymore. It was twice a decade... once every five years. Once I realized Stefan wasn't coming I convinced him to give his original plan another go. We played rock paper scissors to decide who would be taking both rations and let's just say paper covers rock."

"So did it work?"

Damon looks away, "more or less."

"How did you get out?" Elena asks more forcefully.

"It doesn't matter, Elena. I got strong, I got out. It wasn't pretty that's all you need to know."

"Wes is gonna come back down here, and we'll both be the newest Augustine experiment. You have to tell me how you got out of here, Damon."

Damon shakes his head, "You don't want to know, Elena."

"Why? You think I'm gonna judge you?"

When Damon doesn't say anything Elena lets go of her irritation and tries to get through to him.

"Damon, I love you. I love you, and these people tortured you for five years. Whatever you had to do, I don't care."

"All right. All right." Damon says admitting defeat, "The Augustines' next party was in 1958. I'd been drinking Enzo's rations for almost three years. I got stronger from all the extra blood just like he said I would."

** 1958 **

Dr. Whitmore clinks his glass getting everyone's attention, "Ladies and gentlemen, as it is almost midnight, I think it fitting that we toast the New Year with a glass of vampire blood, wouldn't you agree?" 

He unlocks the cage, allowing Damon to step out. He then closes the cage shut, locking Enzo in. While Whitmore is distracted with the cage, Damon pretty much breaks every bone in his hand forcibly pushes off the cuffs.  Whitmore looks at him and notices one of his hands is free. Damon holds his hand up as it starts to heal, bones popping back together.

"Now you see it." He says to Whitmore tauntingly as his hand finishes healing. He then furiously grabs Dr. Whitmore's head with both hands and digs his thumbs into his eyes. Whitmore screams in pain, then Damon buries his fangs into his neck to drain him and finish him off. 

Terror as broken out in the party the guests scream and begin to run, one of them tipping over a candelabra and causing a fire to break out. Damon doesn't seem to notice the fire quickly grew out of control, he is lost in a blood haze killing any of the guests he gets his hands on either biting them or breaking their necks. The fire grows even stronger and at this point, Damon is covered in blood and half out of his mind.

"Damon!" Enzo shouts desperate to bring Damon back down to earth so they can get out of there. "We got to get out of here! Damon, now!"

This seems to snap Damon out of it he rushes to Enzo grasping the bars of the cage in order to break them Enzo does the same trying to help but both are burned by the bars.

"Vervain!"

They keep trying several more times to break the vervain-laced bars but it burns too much for them to keep hold of. Damon stops altogether, observing his surroundings and backing away as he shakes his head. He then stares back at Enzo, looking sad but knowing what he must do.

"Damon." Enzo is trying not to believe what he knows is true what he knows Damon is about to do.

"I'm sorry, Enzo."

Enzo looks at his friend desperately, "Damon, please."

Damon backs away more, shaking his head. He turns off his humanity allowing him to walk away from Enzo and save himself.

"No. Don't-- Don't-- Don't leave me here. Don't go! Please! _(hits the cage in anger)_ Damon! Please don't leave me! Damon! Come on! Damon! Damon! Please!

** 2013 **

"Enzo trusted me with his life. The fire was getting out of control,  I would have burned, or they would have captured me again. There's no way I would have ever gotten another chance of escaping.

This stuns Elena.

"So I chose to save myself. And I knew if I was going to save myself, that I had to stop caring about Enzo. So I turned off my emotions. After that, everything was fine... everything was fine." 

Elena seems disturbed by his admission and a silence hangs over them until Aaron comes in.

"What the hell is this place?"

"Aaron?" Elena asks with optimism.

Damon isn't as hopeful, "great. Mini-Wes."

Aaron seems hurt by that, "I didn't know what Wes was doing, I didn't even know there was a basement down here."

"Aaron, you have to help us."

But any hope Elena had when seeing Aaron soon starts to fade seeing a gun in his hand.

"I wanna know the truth. When you met at Megan's memorial, you asked me a bunch of questions."

He tries loading a gun with wooden bullets, but his hands are shaking so much he drops some as he does it.

"Slick hands, cowboy." Damon snarks once again getting under Aaron's skin.

"Yeah? Well, I've never used a gun before...and I never killed anyone unlike the two of you."

This confuses Elena

"What are you talking about?"

"Wes said a vampire killed Megan." Aaron says now aiming his gun at Elena.

"And you thought it was Elena?" Damon asks bewildered.

Elena shakes her head, "no. Megan was inside this house. I hadn't even been invited yet. You just--" Elena quickly tries to reason with Aaron that she wasn't the one who hurt Megan but Aaron has another bomb to drop.

"Wes also said a vampire killed my parents. Maybe that was you, too!" Aaron says getting more agitated and increasing his grip on the gun.

"No, Aaron. That's impossible-"

"Why else would you be so interested in me?" Aaron is becoming unhinged not knowing what is true anymore and Damon telling him to calm down didn't help. 

"Why else would you pretend to be my friend?" He turns to Damon but keeps the gun trained on Elena

"She's a vampire!"

Damon scoffs, "not the one that killed your parents. That was all me."

The shock of this admission causes a stunned Aaron to lower his gun.

"What did you just say?" Moving over to stand in front of Damon's cell and pointing the gun at him now. "Start talking."

Damon sighs, "In 1958, after the fire, Enzo was dead, so I had to take on my revenge plan solo. I vowed to take out the entire Augustine society, kill every member of the Whitmore family. Enzo thought this lacked imagination but I hadn't gotten to the best part of my revenge plan yet.

I vowed to kill every member of the Whitmore family except one person. I decided to let that person grow up, start a family, and then I would come back and start killing Whitmores all over again. I decided to take out entire generations leaving only one person to carry on the name taking out the next over and over again. And that's exactly what I did."

Damon states with absolutely no shame or remorse stunning Aaron and Elena.

"How many Whitmores have you killed?" Aaron asks starting to shake again at the newest revelation.

"Since 1958?" Damon seems to find the question outrages, "I lost count."

"When was the last one? Damon, when was the last one?!" Elena asks needing to know now herself.

"A few months ago. Her name was Sara. Had to go all the way to Charleston to find her. It was a weekend trip. You didn't know."

Elena shakes her head in disbelief, "but we were together a few months ago." 

"Starting the summer of our lives," Damon says dreamily.

"I had no idea!" Elena proclaims feeling like a fool.

"Told you it wasn't pretty."

_Bang!_

Aaron shoots Damon in the head taking him down before Wes comes in and injects Elena with more vervain taking her out of her cell whilst Aaron just watches not able to muster up any more sympathy.

Eventually, Damon comes to and quickly realizes Elena's cell is empty. Panicked he starts punching the wall over and over again until a decent size rock falls he then gets on his stomach and reaches for one of the bullets Aaron dropped while trying to load his gun initially he unscrews the bullet and places it in the keyhole before hit it with the rock causing a tiny explosion after a few more kicks to the door he is able to break free.

 

 


	11. The Arena

**3rd Person POV:**

After picking up Stefan to help in the search for Elena the brothers are now confronting Aaron.

"Pop quiz," Damon says startling Aaron, "So your girlfriend's taken by a mad scientist. Now, do you: A, get a new girlfriend; B, call the police; or C, kill someone close to the mad scientist?"

Aaron tries to run but is stopped by Stefan, "sit."

"Look, I have no idea where Wes took her."

"Well, they're not at his lab, so where else could he hide a vampire?"

"I'm sorry. Am I supposed to know who you are?

"That's my brother Stefan, but I'd watch your tone with him because he's kind of in the midst of a psychotic break."

"I'm sorry. I'm what?"

"Oh, come on. You don't think I know about you and Katherine?"

"Oh, I see. You're jealous."

"See?" Damon says to Aaron, "He's off his rocker, he's losing his mind, teetering on the brink of insanity."

"How are you not dead? I shot you."

"Well, because you went for the head. You got to go for the heart. Go for the heart next time. Now, where's Elena?"

"I have no idea. All that Wes told me was to go about my life as usual."

"We're gonna call Wes, and you're gonna tell him that if he doesn't give us Elena the next experiment that he conducts it's gonna be sewing your arms back on."

_** On the phone: ** _

_Wes/Dr. Maxfield: "Aaron, hey."_

_Aaron: "Do you have Elena?"_

_Wes/Dr. Maxfield: "Aaron, what's wrong?"_

_Aaron: "Uh, Stefan and Damon Salvatore are gonna kill me unless you give them Elena."_

_Wes/Dr. Maxfield: "Damon Salvatore is locked in an impenetrable and inescapable fortified cell."_

_Aaron: "Or he's in front of me imagining what my kidney would taste like."_

_Wes/Dr. Maxfield: "Fine. Meet you in my classroom. Once I see you're safe, tell them I'll give them Elena."_

**_ Grayson Gilbert Old Offices _ **

After hanging up Wes walks down to the basement where Enzo is strapped to a gurney. He removes the IV from him that was feeding his body Vervain.

"Enzo...Enzo, wake up." He says while getting a syringe ready. "When was the last time you were out in civilization?" He then injects Enzo.

"What's that?" Enzo asks weakly.

"An insurance policy. Guarantees you'll come back to me. I'm giving you the day off."  He pulls out a few blood bags showing them to Enzo, "You and Damon have some catching up to do."

A Smirk makes its way across Enzo's face.

**Enzo POV:**

So this is the 21st century... so far I am not impressed but won't ever knock the chance to get some fresh air. The thought of confronting Damon almost make the last 55 years worth it. I make my way over to the classroom Wes' little relative will be arriving in with Damon and prop myself up on one of the chairs towards the back. Yes, I think this room will do quite nicely for a makeshift arena. 

I hear footsteps coming closer

"Which one is it?" Damon asks,

"It's right here." 

 _and showtime_ , 

3 people walk in, granted I only know one but I was never one for stage fright.

"21051." I say as a form of greeting.

"Enzo?" Damon asks looking quite befuddled 

"It's been a while mate." I start making my way towards Damon and the spectators thoroughly enjoy how uncomfortable Damon looks until I'm interrupted.

"Who the hell are you?" The tall broody one with a mess of hair on top his head asks,

"Lorenzo, but my friends call me Enzo. Ah. Kidding. I don't have any friends." I offer my hand but the one with the hair makes no move essentially spoiling my fun... _party pooper._

"Enzo's another Augustine vampire. Our cells were next to each other." 

 _Really that's how he introduces me, surely I have to have a bit more in my headline._  

"So we're here to meet somebody -Wes Maxfield. You know him?" Ah and now you want something from me, well that's not how this is going to work.

"That's your first question for me? Not _'How are you? How'd you survive in that fire I left you to die in?"_   Honestly, some people have no manners.

"Uh, does somebody want to tell me what the hell is going on here?" The little one pipes up, ah finally someone with a little courtesy.

"I'd love to. Have a seat. Been waiting seventy years to tell my story." I get comfortable on the teacher's desk and motion for them to have a seat might as well take a load off this will definitely take awhile. But of course, hairdo has to go and ruin my fun yet again!

_Really he's left to make a phone call?!_

"Where's Elena?"

"Who's this?"  Wes, that's who he's called? Really I think the amount of hair on his head has started to encroach where brain matter should reside.

"We have Aaron, and we're trying to decide how to kill him." Yes, he has your girl strapped down and vulnerable- threaten him, brilliant idea. Who the hell even is this idiot?

"Funny. I have Elena, and I'm wondering how she'll function without her cerebral cortex. Touch him, and you'll never see her again."

"That threat works both ways." ah and he hangs up on him well done Stefan very dramatic. Well, I'm not waiting anymore on with the show.

"Damon and I had been locked in those cells for years, tortured, beaten, humiliated, but we weren't gonna let them break us, no. We decided if we're going to escape, we needed to work together. We needed each other."

Stefan enters the classroom again.

"He's not sending her." Stefan ignores me speaking only to Damon, you know for only conversing with sadistic Mangala type monsters for decades I am still finding these people on the outside severely lacking.

"Tragic. Can I continue my story now, please?"

"Doesn't he know we have Aaron?" Damon replies to Stefan in turn also ignoring me and now I can feel my inner monster starting to come out, this is not what I have waited 55 bloody years for!

"He doesn't care. He's willing to risk it."

"What? Let me to talk to him! He'll listen to me," the little one begs,

And here I thought I could count on him. Well, that's it for me, I hop off the desk.

"What part of 'he doesn't care' are you not registering?"

I rip out a row of seats and send them crashing across the room. Ah, that seems to have gotten their attention.

"Where were we? Uh, ah, right. I was telling my story, and you were all politely listening. Huh?"

I walk back up to my "stage" before continuing. 

"So I'd given Damon all of my blood rations so he'd have the strength to escape and save me in the process. Our plan began perfectly, didn't it?

I was waiting in the cage for him to release me, waiting for my friend, my cellmate, the only soul with whom I'd connected within all those years after I lost Henrietta... after she was taken from me!"

Just going over all this again I can almost feel the flames angrily lapping at my terrified body trapped inside that cage.

"Then a fire starts- burns out of control, but Damon just can't get the damn cage open. He looks me in the eye as if he doesn't even recognize me, turns around, saves himself, leaving me to die."

"Well, you didn't die, obviously." Wow this blokes sensitivity is touching.

"No. Unfortunately, I lived. I was spared by one of the scientists so I could spend another fifty years on a table being opened and closed by another. Unable to search for my long lost love Henrietta Salvatore. You are running around after some girl do you know how long I've been waiting to save my girl! Well, now that we've all been acquainted, I'm gonna find something to wet my whistle."

**3rd Person POV:**

Stefan looks at Damon shocked at hearing his sister's name, "what is he talking about Damon? How does he know Henrietta's name? Why did you never tell me about him, about any of this?"

Damon rolls his eyes, "right so long story short- big sis is a vampire who was also tortured by Agustine where she met and fell in love with Enzo before being sold off to help line their pockets and further fund their experiments... so do you want to kill Aaron, or should I?"

This stuns Stefan he always thought his sister lived her human life and died he never once suspected she might have been turned. A million thoughts and feelings were racing through him now-

Hope of seeing her again, 

anger at being kept in the dark, 

abandonment for her never seeking him out- 

it all kept wrestling inside him. Suddenly Damon's calm demeanor sets him off.

"This guy was your cellmate for five years, you left him to die, you knew our sister was alive and never told me! how are you completely unfazed?" 

Choosing to ignore his brother's outburst he turns to Aaron, "fine. I will."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Wes gave me a bunch of files on my family history. They're in my dorm, okay? Maybe there's something in there you need, a name, I mean, another lab."

"That's a timely revelation."

"Where is she now Damon? Damon? Damon I swear if you know where she is..."

"Calm down Stefan let focus on saving Elena and then maybe we can circle back to this okay?"

Damon turns around and starts to come at Aaron, "I don't like you, I don't like your family, I don't like you messing up my relationship. If you're lying, I'm gonna take my thumbs, and I'm gonna gouge out your sad little eyes out of your sad little head!"

**Enzo POV:**

Well now seems as good a time as any to make my entrance.

"Ah. It's frightening what you can find on campus these days." I say Bourbon in hand re-entering this little arena.

"Knock yourself out. We're going with plan B."  Hairdo tells me, I really want to punch this bloke in the face for some reason, but more important things to do and all.

"Damon's not. Damon's staying right here. He knows all my secrets, so he knows how ornery I can get when I don't get my way."

The other two make their way out and now its time for the real show.


	12. Insurance Plan

**Enzo POV:**

I gaze out the window already starting to feel the effects of Wes' little insurance plan. I doubt it will help much but I start working on the liquor I found.

"What about cricket? That ever become a thing here?" I ask mildly curious,

"No."

"Oh, shame. Fun sport. Not that I can play. Took up drawing for a while. Of course, I had no pencil, so I'd just prick my finger and paint the cell wall with my blood."

"What do you want? You want me to feel guilty? I couldn't save you. Now, where's Elena?"

"Where's Henrietta?" I shout at him, but it causes me to stumble a bit, alerting Damon to the pain I am in.

"What's wrong with you?" Seemingly bothered by my outburst... It's getting easier and easier to make peace with what I'm about to do.

"Wes injected me with poison that will stop my heart. I'll desiccate if I don't return for the antidote, now you want your girl... tell me where mine is."

"All the more reason to tell me where he is. Look. You get the antidote, I'll save my girlfriend, we'll kill Wes together." Of course, he ignores the part about Etta.

"Did you even think about it after you left, the experiments, the cell? Or did you just go out and live your merry life to its fullest? Did it even occur to you to try and find your sister? Or are you still mad about what she did to mommy?" I spit the last word at him, hoping to cause as much pain as possible.

Damon begins to walk towards me anger burning in his eyes, ah finally a reaction. But he quickly gets his temper under control putting back on his mask of indifference but now that I know his weak spot I know how easy it is to make that mask slip.

"Look at me. If you go back, we go back together. We finish this for good. Come on."

Really? Appealing to my sense of camaraderie? Well isn't that ironic. Poor sod even offers me his hand as if that will make us square. I grip his hand in mine and finally tell him he's not gonna win today, not again.

"You're not gonna see your girl again, Damon, because I want the antidote, and Wes told me not to come back until you were dead."

I finish off my point by crushing his hand, see that you self-serving Momma's boy. 

I grab him by his neck and send him flying through one of the windows. He lands on what passes for a car nowadays.

"I imagine you just broke your clavicle. Probably a few lumbar and thoracic vertebrae. It's funny what you learn about your body when it's taken apart like a bloody automobile right before your eyes!" 

His body quickly heals itself and he is back on his feet... good wouldn't want this to be an unfair fight.

"I'm not gonna fight you, Enzo." The hell you aren't. I land a punch right in his face.

"What are you gonna do then, run? You're good at that."

I try to punch him again but Damon grabs my fist and crushes the bones with his hand. 

_Knew you wouldn't hold back for long, mate._

"I want to find my girlfriend." Really is he going for compassion... sympathy... from me!

"And I want to find mine! And I can't do that if I'm dead. While you were out running wild, all I had were the thoughts of what was happening to Etta, was she scared? Was she in pain? Did she think I had given up on her? Well, that and having the pleasure of killing you." 

I can feel the poison starting to take over-

Crap! NO! I need more time but my outburst seems to have taken a toll on my failing body and my veins are closing in on each other slowly as I know my body is about to desiccate. 

Damon suddenly looks alarmed, "Enzo, look at me," 

what, don't tell me now you care?

"Bloody poison!" I manage to get out, can't believe this is how I go down, I feel like I've failed Etta all over again.

"Where is he? Where's Elena? Tell me where she is!" Of course, that's what you care about. Should have known.

"Or what?! You never see her again? It might be good for you to know what it's like to miss someone for the next sixty years!"This pain is doing me in I collapse as the death in my veins make it to my face and its lights out. 

So much for my bloody show.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I wake and slowly sit up but instead of finding Dr. Wes Maxfield I see Damon.

"What did you do now?"I feel like I'm myself again... not exactly how I expected to wake up.

"Well, I injected you with a bunch of these that say _antidote_ and apparently, one of them worked." 

I get off the table I'm on a walk towards him still not trusting anything that comes out of his mouth.

"If this is some attempt to make amends, it's a bit pathetic, mate."

"I don't care about amends, mate. My girlfriend's safe, so technically, I'm not suffering, and it'd really suck if you desiccated in vain..." 

I shake my head, of course his girl is safe, everything always works out for him doesn't it I take my chance and vamp speed over to him but before I am able to do any damage he has his hand in my chest gripping my heart.

"...and I'm gonna tell you my side of the story. You asked me if I thought about you after I escaped, and answer is no, and I sure as hell don't feel guilty about leaving you because, in order for me to save myself and leave you, I had to shut off my humanity, damn it, so I flipped the switch, and then I felt nothing, no remorse, no regret, no pain... but eventually that switch came back on again and I did go looking for my sister... figured I owed it to my friend."

"What happened to her?" I ask terrified of his answer because if she's dead he may as well have my bloody heart.

"Found her in 1994. You mentioned my mother so clearly, she told you what she did but I saved her anyway for you. Let's just say ungrateful is the word that comes to mind especially when she learned of your demise... She wailed for a couple hours before turning off her own switch, that was the last I saw of her. no Idea where she is." 

He finally releases the grip he has on my heart telling me that "we're even." But we'll never be even.

"You and your brother were the most important people in her life, she practically raised you... defended you against your father when your own mother wouldn't. You forget she also lost a mother that day and seeing the hate you had for her it destroyed her but that's just who you are, that's who you'll always be...A monster."

I mentally wash my hands of Damon and I walk out after almost 70 years of captivity I am free and I swear as God as my bloody witness Etta, I will find you.


	13. I Want to Know

**3rd Person POV:**

Everyone is gathered at the boarding house, Damon is pouring out shots. 

"Rule number one: Name the worst thing Katherine Pierce has ever done. Rule number two: Toast to the glory of her impending death. Rule number three: If you come across something that's worse, which you will, repeat rules one and two."  

Damon raises his glass, "she pretended to be buried in a tomb for 145 years, while I waited for her lying ass. Wait...Does that beat pretending to be Elena and kissing me on the front porch of your old house?"

Jeremy shakes his head, "I don't think so."

"I don't think so either. Damn." Damon downs his shot before pointing to Matt, "Quarterback, go."

"Uh..."

"Think on that, Little Gilbert?"

Jeremy shrugged, "she fed me to Silas and I died."

Damon whistles, "doozy."

"Then, she made me crash my car into a pole and left me for dead...again."

"Double doozy. Drink."

Everyone takes another shot.

Matt joins in, "my sister's dead because of her."

Damon agrees, "yes she is...because I wouldn't have even been in town to turn Vicki into a murderous vampire if I wasn't trying to get Katherine out of a tomb she wasn't in."

Elena picks up a glass, "she impersonated me...repeatedly. Made Aunt Jenna stab herself in the stomach and she cut off Uncle John's fingers."

_Shots_

"He might have deserved that," Jeremy mutters under his breath.

"My Grams died trying to close a tomb she wasn't in."

_Shots_

"Tyler's werewolf curse got triggered because of her."

_Shots_

"Klaus followed her to Mystic Falls and because of that, we lost Jenna."

"And Alaric," Damon adds

_Shots_

"We're going to need more booze," Matt gets up and leaves everyone to their entertaining yet morose drinking game.

"She tried to kill me at least twice,"

_Shots_

"She did kill me...Although I'm weirdly better off," Caroline adds.

"Rumor has it, she burnt down the entire city of Atlanta once."

"That might win."

Stefan comes into the room from upstairs, "all right. Knock it off or take it somewhere else. You guys are being insensitive."

Damon rolls his eyes, "come on, Stefan. Don't let the sight of a frail, human Elena-look-alike cloud your memories of the manipulative psycho that she is."

Damon holds out a full shot glass to Stefan. Hesitantly Stefan takes it.

"In 1864, Katherine moved into my home, she compelled me to love her, seduced my brother, fed us full of vampire blood and then started a war with the town that got us killed."

"Exactly. Bottoms up."

_Shots_

"But, centuries before that, she was just an innocent girl that was shunned by her family. So for five hundred years, she lied and manipulated and did whatever she had to do to survive. And she did. She's a survivor, right? So that's the girl I will drink to today. Cheers."

Damon scoffs, "please. One night of hot sex with her and you're brainwashed?"

"What?!"

Caroline's eyes bug out, "oh my...I forgot to tell you. You were kidnapped and hostage and..."

Enzo arrives at the Boarding House and interrupts Caroline's stuttering.

"I see you're all hard at work trying to find your long-lost sister"

"Wait, What sister?" Elena asks,

Caroline winces, "might have forgotten to mention that too"

"and how exactly does blondie know," Damon asks,

"Well the sister I thought died a hundred and fifty years ago is a vampire that my brother has known about the entire time and yet he acts like he just forgot to tell me we were out of milk...I felt a need to vent," Stefan explains,

Enzo comes further into the room now

"Yes well, you can always work through your emotions by helping me track her down?"

Stefan puts his glass down, "and I will but not today, Katherine the girl who turned us is dying I need to stay here for that"

"So you guys have a sister how has this never come up?" Elena asks,

Stefan turns to his brother, "Damon care to explain?"

"Katherine, Katherine... why does that name sound... ah wasn't she the one who spilled Etta's secret, her deepest shame like it was gossip causing Damon to throw her out and banish her from both her brothers lives forever?" Enzo supplies,

Stefan seems shocked by this, "wait, what?"

Damon gets up, "look, Stefan, its just not the right time to get into all that"

"Bottle's empty...I should–" Stefan says still looking bothered but wanting to be anywhere else right now.

"That's why you never send a busboy to do a man's job."

Damon Spots Nadia behind Stefan before either brothers are able to make a move for more liquor. 

"Nadia the devil's spawn.... Caroline, did you remember to tell Elena that?"

_Caroline smacks her forehead._

"I think my mind just exploded. Okay. Katherine's upstairs." Elena takes down another shot.

"Actually, I'm here to see all of you. I found a way to save my mother and I need some help."

"Well certainly seems you lot are a popular bunch." Damon ignores Enzo and replies to Nadia.

"Uh-uh. No way. Even my biased brother knows I will kick his ass from here to Kentucky if he helps Katherine Pierce live one more day on this Earth. No volunteers." Shooting looks at everyone with the others making sure they know complying isn't optional.

"I figured as much, which is why I found that old safe your brother spent the summer drowning in and buried it on this property with your friend Matt inside of it. Oh – without this." Nadia places Matt's Gilbert ring on the table.

"What?"

Enzo looks around, "I take it that ring Is that ring supposed to hold some significance."

A search for Matt commences meanwhile upstairs Damon is making sure Katherine is having some very unpleasant dreams. He picks up a pillow and is standing above her ready to end her now instead of drawing it out any longer.

Sheriff Forbes interrupts before he can make a move tho.

"Put the pillow down, Damon."

"Liz..." he draws out not wanting to back down.

"If you kill her, it's murder. I'd have to bring you in, lock you up...there's all that paperwork..."

"Every awful thing I've ever done is linked to her. She taught me how to kill. I don't enjoy it... she ruined me and I can't take any of that back."

Sheriff Forbes sighs, "look at how much control she still has over you, Damon. Prove her wrong."

She takes the pillow from Damon's hands and lays it down as Katherine starts to wake up.

"Here are the sedatives from the hospital. it should help with the pain."

"I don't want them. They make me weak and when I'm weak, he can get inside my head." Katherine says still coming to.

"Okay. Suit yourself. They're right here if you want them," She turns to Damon. "Still looking for Matt? Any word from Elena?"

"We're not on a speaking basis."

"Didn't you hear sheriff? He was so afraid to dirty her white dove feathers that he let her little wings fly free. And it was all my fault. Oops."

Damon grabs one of the syringes Sheriff Forbes laid out and roughly jabs it into Katherine's arm. 

That'll make her shut up for a while."

Katherine drifts to sleep.

**_ Flashback Mystic Falls 1864 _ **

Katherine is sitting in a horse-drawn carriage in the woods, looking out at the scenery.

"How much further until we reach this Lockwood plantation?" She asks Emily,

"Won't be long now. We've just entered the town of Mystic Falls."

"Good."

The carriage comes to a stop.

"What is it now?"

"It looks like a gentleman is having problems with his carriage."

Katherine sighs, "at this rate, we won't arrive until sundown. What does it matter if..." But Katherine's complaining is interrupted when she lays eyes on Stefan Salvatore. 

"Who is that? He's so handsome. What do you say, Emily? Think that gentleman's family can take in a poor orphan girl from Atlanta?"

**_ Mystic Falls 2014 _ **

"What the hell was that?" Damon wants to know when Katherine wakes up again.

"You never heard the real story of how I came to meet your brother. I want to think that this prophecy of the universe bringing the doppelgängers together is absurd, but the moment that I saw Stefan, I can't describe it...the out-of-the-way road, the downed tree, the broken down carriage. It just...sounded like fate to me."

Damon goes to pick up another syringe of drugs to knock her out again.

"No! No! No more drugs!!" But suddenly Damon transforms into John Gilbert, who grabs her wrist. He uses the same words she used when she chopped off his fingers.

"Hello fingers, goodbye fingers."

He cuts off Katherine's fingers but now John morphs into Damon with a wicked grin until another familiar face pops in to stop him from tormenting Katherine.

"Enough!"

"Elijah..." Katherine breathes his name so relieved to see him, he comes closer and sits on the bed with Katherine.

"Katerina." Katherine caresses Elijah face lovingly.

"You're here." She feels safe enough to let her guard down and briefly closes her eyes only to open them and find her hand now rests upon Damon's cheek... Sadly she realizes Elijah was never there. Katherine is taken aback by this and she drops her hand and backs away further up the bed.

"I'm sorry, did you actually think that that was real? Nope. No one's coming to say goodbye, Katherine. Because no one cares." Damon finishes his mercilessness only to have his neck broken from behind. As his body falls to the ground we see Nadia.

"I do." Nadia beckons a traveler named Mia to her side.

"Come on. Let's get on with this."

Nadia and Mia are sitting at Katherine's bedside. Damon unconscious on the floor.

"Repeat this spell so I know you understand how the passenger works." But Katherine shakes her head.

"I can't."

"Just say it," Nadia tells her, "Jaryakat a zem. Daryeet acza. Say it and it's done. Your spirit goes inside my body and Mia will activate it by calling you forth and you get to live."

Katherine asks Mia for a moment alone with her daughter and Mia leaves them alone stepping out of the room.

"I know what you're going to say."

"We don't have time for this. Nadia, letting my father rip you out of my arms...it was the biggest regret of my life. I should've fought harder to keep you, but I didn't. So I spent the next five hundred years making sure I didn't make that mistake again. I fought for everything -- and in the process, I had a long, full life. And I got to know my beautiful daughter. You spent the last centuries searching for me. Don't waste another minute on me. It's your turn to live."

"You can't do this." Nadia begs her mother not wanting her to die after finally finding her.

Damon wakes up but pretends to still be unconscious and listens in on Katherine and Nadia's conversation.

"Let me. I made selfish decisions all my life. Let me do the right thing for once." Katherine pleads with her daughter.

"Fine. Then go. Leave me. Drift off into oblivion, but I will not sit by your side and watch you die." She stomps off and Katherine injects herself with the syringe drifting off to sleep again.

Damon leaves and runs into Stefan.

"Ouch." His neck still sore

"What the hell happened to you?"

"In a shocking twist, Katherine's daughter is a psychopath. Whew. She's all yours. I've had fun messing with her mind all day."

"Damon..." Stefan says disapprovingly.

"I know, Stefan. I know. It's been a rough couple of days. I needed an outlet, okay?"

"I still need to know what happened to Henrietta, I don't care if now's not the right time alright? And if you won't tell me she will." He motions towards Katherine's room.

"Yeah well I won't tell you and she will only give you her self-serving version so good luck with that."

Disappointed and stressed Stefan takes a deep breath before going into Katherine's room alone.

"Hey."

"These drugs are hardcore." Katherine slurs a bit clearly out of it. Stefan taking pity tells her to close her eyes he just came in here to say goodbye.

"I thought you wanted to know about your sister?"

"I've decided to help Enzo find her... she can tell me herself. Come on close your eyes."

"No, I want to see you."

"You will." He reassures her and gently brings his hand up to her face. Katherine is transported to an earlier nightmare curtsey of Damon it's her coming upon the bodies of her family after Klaus had them slaughtered. Stefan witnesses Katherine weep over a body.

"So this is the memory you came back to? A little dark, no?"

"Damon already had his fun with this one. This was the worst day of my life. He said it was my fault; that I deserve everything bad that's ever happened to me. He's right...He was right, Stefan. I don't deserve to be loved."

"Open your mind to me." Stefan takes over the memory/dream. He tells her to look over at her father. She sees he is no longer pinned to the wall by a sword.

"He's gone...What are you doing?"

"You deserve to feel peace." He tells her full of compassion and empathy. As she looks around the room, her mother's body, and the blood on the duvet disappears.

"Mother?"

"You were a seventeen-year-old girl, Katherine. None of this is your fault." Katherine hears the tiny whimper of a crying baby...her daughter. As she approaches her in a tiny bassinet the room turns to light.

"Goodbye, Katherine." Stefan plants a kiss on her forehead also finding peace for himself and letting go of Katherine the good and mostly bad he lays it all to rest.

**_ It's night-time & Damon, Stefan, and Enzo are outside chatting on the steps drinking alcohol and looking up at the sky. _ **

Damon: "You really want to know?" Damon asks Stefan regarding Henrietta.

"I think deep down you both really want to know." Enzo interrupts.

"I already -"

Enzo interrupts Damon, "no, you know whatever Katherine told you the rest were assumptions and judgments on your part."

There is a silence and finally Stefan answers.

"I want to know."


	14. Sad Stories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enzo is describing what Etta told him so there will be a flashback in a flashback if that makes sense... hopefully I can pull this off, wish me luck and bear with me if I stumble a bit.

**_ The Augustine Cells 1944/In the "present" speaking to Damon and Stefan 2014: _ **

"I had a particularly bad day... lots of electricity seemed to be the latest fad going around with the Docs. My body wouldn't stop shaking not even enough to drink my poultry amount of blood, I was broken... humiliated. I was so bloody tired of seeming week if there had been a way I might have just staked myself to finally put an end to it all.

But then when all hope was lost my angle crawled over towards me and began telling me her story, at the time I remember thinking if there was a possible worse time for our sad stories it wasn't until later when I had time to reflect back on everything that I realized what she was doing telling me her story then.

She was making herself every bit as raw and vulnerable as I was, she didn't want me to feel alone on top of everything else. No one has ever done anything like that for me before. I think that was when I realized I would never love anyone else, only her.

**EPOV**

"You know my father was a real son of a bitch," I heard my angel speak...

She was in what had to be a very uncomfortable position pressed up against our divider but scrunched down and curled into a ball so I could still see her gorgeous face. I hadn't even registered what she had said at first.

"He was a cruel man and my mother, she was a gentle dove... always too timid to even think of standing up to him even if it meant protecting her children she wouldn't...she couldn't do it.

I never blamed her tho not until one night where my father had been tormenting Damon around the dining table. He lit his cigar while explaining to us money had gone missing from his bureau, Damon told him it wasn't him, I mean he was only 12 what would he have done with the money anyway... but he played on my brothers heart knowing the kind of things our father was capable of he took the blame anyway not wanting anyone else to suffer his wrath.

Before I could blink my father had grabbed Damon's arm and was using it as a... as a... a ashtray. I couldn't take it. I didn't know where mother had run off too she had been gone longer then it would take to pour father his drink not that she'd do anything if she were here. I stood up and threw a lit candelabra at his head.

That night he beat me so savagely I was near death. A new neighbor of ours, a Miss. Pearl, found me in the middle of the road coming into town. Father must have thought he could make my death look like a tragic carriage accident. She was the one who turned me. I became a vampire that night.

I went back... I wasn't supposed to Pearl warned me I was too young to control the thirst for blood and that if I loved my family the best thing to do would be to leave. But I had to see my brothers one last time... say goodbye even if they couldn't hear me I had to say it for myself.

But when I got to the house I saw my mother sneaking around and in her hand was the money my father had burned Damon over. The money which resulted in my death. She was the one who took it and did nothing while her children paid the price.

After seeing this I couldn't do what Pearl had said I couldn't leave my brothers. I did stay gone for a few weeks... I couldn't exactly show up the next day to breakfast without a scratch on me. I got my thirst under control and Pearl's daughter Anna helped me acquire a daylight ring from a witch she knew.

Anna admired my loyalty to my brothers, she even indulged me with my ludicrous idea of drinking from animals. After an additional couple of weeks, I decided I trusted myself to return home.

The story had been that our new neighbor had found me in the road coming into town but I had been so hurt I was unable to speak and therefore unable to tell her my name or where my home was. It was a long journey but after a little over two months I was strong enough to come home." 

I heard my angle chuckle softly which in turn had me raising an eyebrow at what she thought was so bloody amusing.

"Sorry, sorry, I was just remembering when my family saw me again the first time. I knocked on the door which my Mother answered I asked if I was on time or if they had started dinner without me. I swear the look on her face, you would think she seeing a ghost... which I suppose she did in a way.

_"How? You were..."_

_"Dead? Mother? Well, nearly but a lovely young woman and her daughter came upon me and nursed me back to health. Are you just going to stand there or are you going to invite me in?"_

_"I am sorry about your father but I don't think you coming inside is a good idea he told others you had run away if anyone_ sees _you they will think him a liar. That wouldn't be good for your father and plus your brothers they mourned you seeing you again could confuse them."_

_"Ah, I see well I guess I could always visit father at the mills tomorrow tell him who has really been stealing from him. Did you think I wouldn't figure it out, Mother?_

_I mean who else would it have been? Certainly not Stefan such a sweet boy he wouldn't dare, Damon would have given the money back if it meant stopping father from hitting me, so that leaves you._

_What was the plan anyhow? Save enough money and leave him, leave us? Do we mean so little to you, I mean I certainly do you left me in the road like a discarded animal carcass!"_

Lily vehemently shook her head, _"no, no I wouldn't do that, Damon he, he must have spent it already."_

_"I notice you didn't deny your plans to run away from your husband."_

She visibly gulped at that and in the background, I heard my father bellow for her frightening her further.

_"Please you can't be here, please go. Look I was going to leave your father your right but you don't understand he... He's a monster."_

_"You think I of all people don't know that! But I still did what I could to protect my brothers which is more than you ever did for any of us! Now invite me in!"_

In the end, I ended up compelling her to let me inside. Once she did she tried to get me on her side before we made it into the dinning room.

_"Look please Etta I love you and your brothers and yes I did take the money and you were right about using it to flee from your father, but I wasn't going to leave you. Well, not all of you."_

That confused me for a moment before I worked out she was talking about Stefan, apparently, in her mind, Damon and I were beyond saving at that point.

We walked into the room and everyone was dead still, my father's jaw was on the table and his eyes held a bit of panic, something I had never seen in them before. Damon was the first to recover.

 _"Your back!"_ He ran over to me and I wrapped him in a hug,

 _"I was afraid you left... I was a afraid you d--"_ He whispered the last part unable to finish and I held him closer.

_"It just took me a little while to heal up but you know me, proud spinster, couldn't leave my brothers to their mischief alone."_

Things were good for a while, my return had eventually been accepted and life regained a sense of normalcy. I would go out "hunting" bring a deer home after keeping one for myself of course.

My father continued to detest me. But he never struck me again after my return he held a fear of me, I think deep down he knew I couldn't  have survived what he did to me... that I was something else now. So he did his best to keep a large distance between us. 

It was reckless of me to stay, I was still such a young vampire but I wanted to wait until Stefan was grown before saying goodbye to Mystic Falls.

Our mother she was sick. I tried slipping her some of my blood but the sickness kept returning. She was suffering from consumption. I had agreed to look after her while my father and brothers were attending the founder's ball, he wanted to keep up appearances didn't want people to see our family and by my extension himself as weak. I shouldn't have agreed to it I should have made an excuse, I should have left.

_**Enzo:** _

_My angel was in tears now looking down, I knew whatever she was about to tell me was something she hadn't ever said out loud before not even to herself._

**Clara:**

"She started coughing up blood. And I.. I had never smelt human blood, not since my transformation. It had been a while since I hunted for any deer I was busy taking care of her I... I I thought I had it under control but I didn't. I killed her. I killed my own mother! Robbed my brothers of their childhood. Ruined whatever good was left in my father. I may have been a vampire but I wasn't truly a monster until that night. 

Once I realized what I had done, I tried to save her, gave her my blood but I was too late she was gone."

**_Enzo:_ **

_She was silent for a long time after that._

_My seizures had stopped finally. It was another hour or so before she composed herself enough to sit back down in front of me. I told her she didn't have to continue but she was determined to finish. She told me about finding a witch that spelled a necklace that would age her appearance when she would wear it. I asked her why she didn't just shut it off, turn off her humanity, the guilt, but she told me that it would have been too easy that she deserved to feel this pain._

**Clara:**

I suppose I could have left then but I was the reason my brothers no longer had a mother I didn't want them to lose anyone else even if it was me. I know they deserve better but I was all they had. Something died in my father when he lost my mother. Its like he didn't have any fight left in him. That all changed a couple years later when he and Jonathan Gilbert became friends. Suddenly there was a fire in him but that also made him dangerous again.

Damon was grown and off to war, I hated letting him go but it was his choice. Stefan was 16 and falling in love. I was happy I was there to help him through his first heartbreak but I knew he would have preferred Damon, he was so old-fashioned and didn't like appearing weak in front of a woman even if it was his own sister.

My father had gotten very secretive going out late at night I thought it was a romance at first but I learned I was wrong one night when curiosity got the best of me.

I watched my father kill a vampire and I knew my time here was coming to a close. I had to be more careful than ever. I warned Pearl and Anna, it suddenly became a very frightening time in Mystic Falls... for everyone.

My brother was home on leave and it was so good to see him again, to see him and Stefan I knew I could go then that I wasn't needed any longer that they would look out for each other.

I was prepared to leave I had even packed.

Until that is a guest arrived from Atlanta, her name was Katherine Pierce. It didn't take me long to realize she was a vampire. I decided to stay and make sure she didn't mean my family any harm. I watched as both my brothers fell in love with her and seeing how it was all a game to her I stepped in but she didn't like that.

She was hundreds of years older than me and stronger, ruthless. I tried to warn Damon I was even prepared to tell him what I was but she had beaten me to it. He looked so betrayed.

He wanted to know everything but I couldn't tell him about our mother. Turns out it was a trap apparently she had already worked it out somehow and now I had proven whatever she had been filling his head with. He told me that I was dead to him and that he would never let me anywhere near Stefan again. 

I thought seeing myself as a monster was the hardest thing but I was wrong. The hardest thing, the most soul-shattering thing was having my brother see me as one. That's when I left and that's why I turned off my switch, that why I am here... Its where monsters belong.

**_ Mystic Falls 2014 "present" _ **

All three men are quiet after Enzo's story the bottle of bourbon long since killed. Damon was the first one to break the silence.

"As far as bedtime stories go that one sucked, I'm gonna go start digging Kitty-Kats grave."

He gets up leaving Enzo and Stefan.

"I'll help you find her, I will but-"

"But whatever doppel trouble there is comes first," Enzo finished for him,

Stefan sighed, "look I might know someone you could ask for help but he is extremely dangerous and will most likely kill you without thought or reason."

Enzo smiles, "perfect, sounds like a lovely chap. And where might I find this king among men?"

Stefan smirked at that apparently it had meaning I was not aware of.

"New Orleans."

He starts walking away but he stops and turns slightly towards me. "Hey, if you find her could you tell her that I miss her and whatever she has done I would really like to see my sister."

Enzo nods, "I will."

I get up and hold my hand out to him and finally, hairdo decides to give me a little respect and shakes my hand.

 


	15. St. John's Place

**_New Orleans, Mikaelson Courtyard:_ **

_Klaus has captured Davina's violin playing crush and has him perched precariously above._

"Where's Rebekah gotten off to?"

Elijah looks around at his brother's latest stunt, "It's not Rebekah that I'm concerned about. And how can you be so certain that Davina will come?"

"One might think you've forgotten what it's like to be in the grip of an all-consuming infatuation. She'll come." 

"Are the maudlin theatrics absolutely necessary, Niklaus?"

"Ha! It's a fair point... Timothy, play something a little more upbeat, please. That's a good lad."

Marcel enters, "Took you long enough to spread the word."

"Have you met his nightwalkers? Not the brightest assortment," Elijah comments.

"All that matters is I got it covered. When Davina gets here, you two need to let me do the talking," Marcel informs them.

"Well, I'm sure you'll have your chance," Klaus replies knowing Davina is close.

Davina enters,

"Hello, love." Klaus looks up to Timothy, "Silence is golden, Timothy. Thank you."

Davina is furious with Klaus, "You got me here. Now let him down!"

"Well, first, we have to have a little chat about you returning to the fold."

Marcel steps between Klaus and Davina, "what did I say, Klaus? I got this."

He turns to Davina, "D, what happened? Why'd you run? Talk to me. Hey, I can make it right."

"How, by threatening my friend?"

Klaus interrupts, "actually, that was my idea. Apologies. I've been known to go too far to make a point, But I do always get results."

Enraged Davina starts to tell Klaus exactly what she thinks of him.

"You pretend to be so confident, but I know the truth. You're afraid everyone can see what you really are-- an animal."

She casts a pain infliction spell that brings him to his knees and has him groaning in pain, "A beast. Why don't you show us your real face?"

She magically forces Klaus to partially transform into a werewolf and is about to snap his neck when suddenly she falls to the ground.

Enzo appears behind her holding what's left of the flower pot he used to smash over her head.

"Never a good thing when a witch decides to throw a temper tantrum, now who here is the great Niklaus Mikaelson? I find myself in need of his assistance."

Marcel rushes over to check on Davina while Niklaus is recovering from Davina's magic Elijah steps forward.

"And who exactly is asking?"

"Ah, my apologies mate, my name is Enzo... and I take it the bloke still on the floor is Niklaus?"

Klaus grumbles, "careful you were almost in my good books for saving me from having my neck snapped wouldn't want to ruin that, would we? What is it you want my help with? And please make it quick we are in the middle of something."

"I am looking for someone, she was taken from me seventy years ago and due to knife happy doctors and a vervain fortified cell...this is the first chance I have had to look for her. A Stefan Salvatore suggested if anyone could help find her or get word out that I am looking it would be you."

Klaus smirks, "Stefan Salvatore sent you? Well, that is a surprise, he must not like you all that much if he filled your head with the notion it was acceptable to walk into my home and ask a favor."

"He warned me it might end in my death but there isn't anything I wouldn't risk... wouldn't do to see her again. You say you're in the middle of something maybe I can help?" Enzo offers.

Elijah straightens his suite, "brother he did interrupt Davina's fun perhaps you could at least hear the name of the one he seeks."

"Well I suppose that is more than either Marcel or my own brother did for me. Very well... what is her name?"

"Her name is Henrietta Salvatore, she has brunette locks and the most stunning blue eyes. American, about 5'8 and she was turned in 1856 in Mystic Falls Virginia. She was captured by the Agustine society in 1897 where she was a captive of either them or their associates until 1994. Have you ever heard of her do you know where I might find her or even where I should start my search. Please."

"St. John's" Marcel speaks up grabbing Enzo's attention.

"I would start there. It's a bar here where the supernatural can interact without fear of possible demise. It's owned by a woman named Henrietta... I never got her last name but I think she matches your description."

"Saint John?" Enzo smiles, "Thank you... thank you very very much."

He is touched she appears to have named her place after him and can't believe his luck that she is in the same city as he. That perhaps his search is over before it truly began. He races into the night to find her.


	16. Reunited

**Etta POV:**

Slow night tonight only about 20 patrons all night, luckily I can compel generous donations from any rich person I cross... or search out for that sole reason.

What can I say being locked away for a hundred years left me in desperate need of funds. I was shocked that day seeing my brother Damon after so many years. I thought maybe he had finally forgiven me for what I did to our mother but when he told me what happened to Enzo that rescuing me was nothing more than a favor he felt obligated to pay... it devastated me but not nearly as much as learning what happened with Enzo.

The love of my life burned alive and it was my brother that left him to such a horrific end. I no longer cared for my brother's forgiveness after that. I pretended to"shut it off" but really I just wanted to get the hell away from Damon without any goodbye speeches.

Living with that amount of grief, pain, regret... It brought me to my knees multiple times a day. Some days I could do nothing but rock on the ground wailing trying to expel some of the pain that was racking my body.

I know I could have shut it off, turned off the pain by giving my humanity a long overdue vacation but I once made Enzo promise not to shut his off and it didn't feel right. I convinced myself that all the pain I felt meant that's how powerful our love was that in some way holding on to that instead of shutting it off was keeping a small part of him with me... and unfortunately, that's all I had left.

I drowned myself with so much booze it finally made sense to buy my own place, plus I didn't exactly have anything else to do. So when I finally let my head clear enough I realized it was four years later and I was in New Orleans. If there is one place for a bar with supernatural patrons it certainly seemed like the place.

I started workshopping my idea for the place and introduced myself around looking for input and support and now here we are. My magic bar where anything wood disintegrates upon entry so the vampires are safe and witches find their magic in a timeout when entering.

Its a place where everything is better and everyone is safe even if just for a night, plus an endless supply of booze. The so-called King of New Orleans has even used my place to broker deals but I had to ban him when he started executing witches, it was bad for business.

He was furious but I think I earned a little respect from him and I didn't really have reason to leave my sanctuary so I was safe here within the walls of St. John's. Yes, I named it after my love and always made sure to have the best bourbon... I think he would have liked it here. I hope wherever he is he's proud of me. I miss him so much.

**ENZO POV:**

There she is I can't believe my eyes as if she is an oasis in a dessert I am terrified if I blink she will have been a mirage. I walk slowly up to the bar and take a seat just observing her, she seems sad but no less gorgeous. She tilts her head she must have picked up someone new just sat down. She is making her way over to me and I don't think I've ever been this nervous. I pray I am able to remain slightly cool for this reunion.

"What can I get y-"

She starts to ask before meeting my eyes but when she does. Wow. There are those blue pools I missed swimming in. She is completely stunned and statue still.

I smile tentatively, "Hello, gorgeous."

"H... hh... how?"

"I got a new cellmate after you left, turned out to be your brother. We ended up doing the blood ration plan to escape and it worked... If you forgive him getting caught up in killing everyone at the party so much he ran out of time to rescue me."

Etta visibly gulps still in shock at seeing me stood before her, "H hhe said you burned that there was a fire and you were trapped unable to be rescued."

"Ahh Except I was in fact 'rescued' by one scientist only to be sent right back down into the cellars. I was kept at Augustine another 60 years... give or take before finally being granted my freedom. I was told if I wanted to find you to ask Niklaus Mikaelson and as luck would have it turns out you were right under my nose."

"This is real? You... You're really here?"

My love is tearing up and still can't fully believe I am in front of her. I lean forward brushing some of her hair away whispering into her ear.

"How about you close up early and I take you upstairs and prove how real I am over and over again until neither one of us can move."

I finish my point my giving her earlobe a little tug with my teeth and her breath catches in her throat. It doesn't take her long to clear the place out and lock up. Soon we are stood across from each other and for the first time, there is nothing between us.

The sensual tension in the room is crackling like a roaring fire. Now its just a matter of who will move first, oh bloody hell what does it matter. We end up moving at the same time and she is finally in my arms. Her legs wrapped around me and I am quick to massage her glorious ass and claim her lips in mine.

The fire between us is an inferno now. Molding her soft lips against mine and plundering her mouth with my tongue is heaven. She locks her legs around me even tighter and it's obvious to tell where she really wants me.

Before we go any further I move my hands from her bottom up to her waist and softly grip her telling her to stop for a moment. I look deep into her eyes,

"Marry me," I blurt out.

"Wait, what?"

"Marry me. Be mine always." I ask her and am delighted to see the smile that is across her face now.

"Yes."

Her smile is so bright right now and the happy tears in her eyes only further light her up. I want to memorize everything about her in the moment. In a flash, I have us upstairs and she directs me where the bedroom is.

We're on the bed now and I can't help but let out an angry growl when my thoughts get away from me some.

"What? What is it? What's wrong?" She pulls back and asks worried and searching my face neck and torso for something that might be wrong.

"Sorry gorgeous I had a very unpleasant thought that perhaps I am not the first man with you on this bed and it made me positively murderous." I didn't expect the little smile playing on her lips but she quickly explains.

"Only you. I've never been with anyone else... not here." Suddenly a sadness washes over her and the tears in her eyes are no longer the happy kind.

"What? What's wrong? Are you alright?"

She tried to pull herself together but fails breaking down into tears. I climb off from on top of her and pull her towards me cradling her trying to offer her comfort.

"You remember that really bad day where I came back almost unrecognizable."

"They were all pretty bad days but yes I think I know which day you're talking about, why?"

"I was raped, by the man they sold me to. He raped me and then he bought me and I was less than an experiment I was his property until he died leaving me to his son who thank God wasn't like his father but he didn't know what to do with me and finally decided the best thing to do was bury me... that's where I've been all these years... rotting in the ground. I am sorry I feel like I've let you down somehow."

"Absolutely not! Look I know we are both from a different time but nothing could ever make me love you less and certainly not what was done to you which was beyond your control. I love you and I will love you forever."

We stared deeply at each other before slowly moving closer our lips meeting again. But it wasn't rushed or frenzied this time it was soft and slow... it was perfect.

I let her smell engulf me... bergamot cinnamon and sex from her delicious arousal that was heavy in the air. We slowly stripped each other. I dragged her top off and placed kisses up her beautiful peaches and cream stomach giving a nip here and there.

I make my way up and inhale right between her two soft luscious breasts. Freeing her completely from her shirt I dance my fingertips across her ribcage around to her back quickly unclasping her bra.

She pushes my shoulders and I give her room to sit up. She slowly lets her bra fall from her chest giving me the best view of my existence. They are perfect, not huge but full and rounded I'd say a c-cup maybe. Her nipples are pink and adorable, her softer than silk areolas pucker up around them slightly giving a texture my tongue is all too happy to savor.

I feel her grab the back of my shirt and drag it off me sadly forcing me to let go of the taste of heaven that was recently in my mouth. She flips us over now so she's on top... I would rather it be the other way around but I am nothing if not accommodating.

Watching her on top of me is intoxicating. She leans down and places a kiss upon my lips and moves to my neck licking, sucking. God the sensations going through my body are out of this world. She moves down my torso using her tongue to trace my muscles. She reaches my jeans and I can't help my hips jerking up reflectively having her so close to my dick is turning me on more than I thought possible, its painful at this point but God I would be so lucky to get to suffer through this pain the rest of my existence. I smile remembering what I asked her.

I can't believe I asked her to marry me but I had her in my arms for the first time after all these years and it just came out. Not that I didn't mean it, I meant it more than anything, the thought of her being my wife fills me with something I can't quite identify but I love it.

I must have been lost in my thoughts because I hadn't even realized she'd gotten my pants off until I felt her wet hot as sin tongue lick the head of my cock before taking me in her mouth. Dear God yes! She is taking her time teasing me sucking me in her mouth only for a moment before taking me out and tracing the veins of my cock with her tongue, tracing the opening on my head- that shot a tingle straight through me. Finally, she granted me mercy and began setting a rhythm with stroking and sucking. I watch her beautiful head start bobbing up and down on me. I want to keep watching but I can't wait anymore to be inside her.

I move her head away and kiss her sucking her bottom lip in my mouth I move us back up the bed and cover her body in kisses before I thrust in.

She throws her head back and I continue to move in her bringing one of her legs up to change my angle slightly. She sucks in sharply and I know I am on the right track. God she feels amazing her wet silky walls around my dick is so addictive I may never leave, I'll just stay right here between her gorgeous thighs until the world stops spinning.

I pick up my speed grinding our hips together every couple of thrusts. I take her lower lip between my teeth and bite hard it sends her over the edge and I feel her spasm and cum all over my cock. I last a few extra thrusts before finishing myself and I bury my nose in-between her neck and shoulder telling her over and over, "I love you."

 


	17. Forgiveness

**Enzo POV:**

I wake up and gaze over at my girl, she's so damn beautiful she practically glows. I see her adorable little toes peeking out from the sheets. I scoot down to the foot of the bed and place tiny kisses on the pads of each of her toes. Her foot starts to twitch and I know she will be awake soon.

 "What are you doing?" My gorgeous love asks me in that groggy sleep voice that hits me straight towards my groin.

"Devouring you, starting with your adorable as fuck toes."

She props herself up on one elbow to get a look at me, her eyes still haven't fully adjusted to the day and she is squinting.

"How did it never come up that you have a foot fetish?" She teases,

"Um its more like I have a you fetish."

She smiles at that and sits up leaning towards me with her hands out calling my body to hers.

"I think I can handle that."

I lay down on top of her and nuzzle my nose in the crook of her neck savoring how damn good she smells.

"Oh before I forget I had a little chat with your brother before coming here."

She looks annoyed, "oh and how is Damon?"

"No gorgeous I meant your other brother." She looks shocked.

"Stefan? You met Stefan? He's..."

"A vampire? Yes, I'm sorry I thought you knew."

"No I didn't."

I shift so I am lying next to her now and I pull her towards me and cradle her a bit.

"He wanted me to tell you he forgives you, that he loves and misses you." She looks up at me now with tears in her eyes.

"He knows about our mother?"

"Yes, he understands she would have died anyway and he loves you more than he hates what you did. He forgives you and would like to see you when you're ready."

She is stunned and seems to be trying to process everything I've told her. I just continue to hold her to me stroking her hair and she settles on my chest with one of her legs resting between mine.

"Is that something you would like to do? Go back to Mystic Falls see Stefan?" I ask her.

"I...I do but I also want to stay in this little bubble of ours a little while first. Is that bad."

"No, I completely understand and am thrilled I get you all to myself for a while still."

**Etta POV:**

Its been eighteen glorious days of sex, cuddling, pillow talk, blood, booze, and more sex. I have never been happier I am practically euphoric.

Tonight we are hosting a dinner to thank Niklaus and Marcellus for helping to reunite us. There is another reason for it as there is something I want to ask of the head of the Mikaelson family so hopefully, tonight will go smoothly.

**St. Ann's Chruch:**

_Parishioners are leaving St. Ann's church. Kieran at the entrance to meet with the attendees personally when Klaus and Marcel approach him._

"Lovely sermon this morning, Father. Quite inspirational."

Cami is also there but is quickly too bothered by Klaus to stay,

Kieran gives Klaus a hard look before calling after her.

"Well, don't look at me. I tried to send her away."

Klaus' phone goes off he answers it with a smirk playing on his face.

"Well if it isn't the lovely Henrietta I've been hearing so much about

....

"Yes, love, we are still on for tonight"

...

"I will see you then"...

"looking forward to it."

He hangs up before his phone quickly rings again, he answers without looking at the caller ID,

"Are you really that desperate to get me over love? I think perhaps poor Enzo should be worried."

_"What? Who's Enzo?"_

"Never mind Diego, What do you have for me?" Klaus replies suddenly filled with frustration to have let that playful side of him show to a stupid underling.

 **St. John's** :

Klaus and Elijah arrive at the St. John.

"We do not have time for this Niklaus," Elijah complains

"I am cultivating what could be a useful ally, but should you not feel the need to stay please run along after the mother of my child or perhaps hold a seance and have a date with the nuisance that has become your former lover Celeste!"

Henrietta welcomes two of the Mikaelson siblings inside. Offering them drink both liquor and blood.

"I am so happy you were able to attend, I can only imagine how busy you both must be."

Klaus smiles at her greeting, "not at all we're happy to finally make your acquaintance isn't that right Elijah?"

"Indeed brother."

Enzo joins them for a drink before dinner standing behind Etta with an arm sweetly placed around her hip.

"You know we should invite Enzo out sometime, give him a proper welcome to the crescent city. The man certainly deserves it, what's it been... a hundred years or so since your last proper bender?"

Enzo smiles, "its actually closer to 70 years mate, and no thank you I'd much rather spend my time wrapped up in my gorgeous fiancee. I'm sure you can understand."

"Fiancee?" Both Klaus and Elijah seem surprised by this.

They all take their seats around a large dining table, made up of smaller club tables pushed together with an elegant cloth covering it.

"Please help yourselves. Hope you don't mind this may be more relaxed than your used to... no servants around," Etta explains,

Elijah nods, "please do not be embarrassed Ms. Salvatore it's not as if you could use compulsion what with the ban on magic here. It is truly impressive what you have managed to accomplish with your establishment, I have been asking around it seems you are well-respected cross several of the supernatural communities here, not an easy fete nowadays. And then there is news of your engagement if we heard correctly."

"Yes, and thank you for being so gracious tonight. After so many years of torture I simply wanted a place where no one need be afraid, it seems that is a popular desire especially under Marcellus' rule and yes we are engaged. Enzo might have been a little caught up in the moment but we are incredibly in love and committed to each other. Loving someone for so long and not being able to be with them is a terrible test of love but one we have both withstood."

Enzo nods, "indeed. We know its not common to marry among vampires but it would mean a great deal to us. Make us happier than we already are to officially belong to one another."

Enzo and Etta smile at each other lovingly and interlace their hands across the table.

"Yes, infinitely happy," Etta sighs, "Which brings us to the other reason I invited you over."

That got Elijah's and Klaus' attention.

Etta looks directly at Klaus before explaining,

"We can have a ceremony, compel court officials, but to really pull this off... make it as official as possible I was wondering if you would do us the honor of officiating. I understand this might be a bit silly to you. If your answer is no I completely understand I would just really appreciate it if you would consider it."

When Klaus learned there was an ulterior motive behind the small dinner party this was not what he was expecting. It was so innocent, touching, he found himself strangely moved and honored to have been asked to perform their ceremony and give his blessing that these two vampires be married. At that moment he felt more of a King than he imagined Marcellus ever had.

"I will not need any time to consider it," He says harshly deflating Etta a bit but he quickly adds, "because It would be my pleasure to preside over your wedding."

He gives her a smile and she is practically bouncing in her chair with excitement and happiness causing the men to chuckle.

"Oh this is fantastic, thank you so much. I am so grateful truly."

"Yes, congratulations Niklaus it is quite the honor." Elijah decides to shift the conversation to something he picked up earlier.

"Did I hear some vitriol when you spoke of Marcellus earlier."

Enzo raises his glass, "cheers mate, way to bring down the mood."

Klaus smirks at Enzo's comment, "yes, you'll have to forgive my brother he does tend to be a bit of a wet blanket on occasion. It'd be completely understandable if his invitation to your nuptials got lost in the mail."

Etta smiles, "I'm sure that won't be necessary. And yes Elijah you did hear a tone when I spoke of Marcel. I try not to judge, we all have blood on our hands but there are certain lines I don't tolerate being crossed and genocide happens to be one of those lines. So until Marcel has gone a considerable length of time without killing any witch who practices magic he has been banned. Of course, that policy was waved for tonight in order for Enzo and I to show our thanks but he chose to decline... apparently I have hurt his feelings with my ban."

Elijah nods, "understandable but is genocide really the right word?"

"To me yes, he is killing because of what they are. It doesn't matter how harmless a spell is or if it even has anything to do with him or his associates he still kills. And he's been known to make a spectacle of it as well."

Elijah found himself respecting the Salvatore sister as well as envying her a bit for her commitment to her values and her public declaration of the love her and Enzo share.

After the evening at Saint John's came to a close Elijah found himself a bit inspired and decided to seek out Celeste.

 

 


	18. You are cordially Invited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place surrounding the events in TVD 5x14 No Exit

**Salvatore Boarding House:**

Katherine is pretending to be Elena having passengered herself into her body. She and Stefan are lounging around, while Stefan quizzes her on history.

 

"Han Dynasty?"

"220 A.D." Kathelena answers correctly,

"Holy Roman Empire?"

"Not really an empire, but 1648"

"There goes your perfect score!" Stefan says,

"What? No! That was right."

Stefan shakes his head, "no, no, no. The book says it was 1806"

Kathelena sighs, "okay, well 1806 may technically be right, but it was the Peace of Westphalia that truly ended the empire and that was in 1648, trust me."

Stefan looks a bit curious, if not confused, as to how Elena knows so much about the Roman Empire.

Kathelena picks up on this and quickly tries to cover her slip up..

"I may have done a paper on the Holy Roman Empire in high school."

Stefan nods, "well if you want to pass the test I suggest you write down exactly what's in the textbook."

Suddenly out of nowhere an elegant envelope materializes in front of Stefan.

"What the hell?"

Kathelena can't help her curiosity, "What is it?"

Stefan opens what turns out to be his sister's wedding invitation.

He is very surprised but can't help the smile creeping across his face. He is happy that after everything his sister suffered she still gets to experience love, her own wedding, and soon marriage.

In his mind given everything he has recently learned from Damon and Enzo, no one deserves it more.

The Invitation read:

_Together with the Blessing of the Mikaelson Family,_

_Henrietta Salvatore and Lorenzo St. James request the pleasure of your company at the celebration of their marriage Saturday, December 17 at Abisko National Park, Sweden under the Northern Lights at 9 o'clock reception to follow at Lacko Castle_.

Stefan smiles,"it's my sister's wedding invitation."

Kathelena having missed this on her almost deathbed is thoroughly shocked at hearing about Henrietta after so long but she quickly loses the look of confusion and schools her face.

(The doorbell rings)

Stefan looks up, "Oh, Caroline's here, I asked the sheriff to help me track down Damon."

Kathelena tries to muster up some concern for Damon's well being... but it's a struggle.

"You were right. He's off the rails. This is from my mom," Caroline says walking into the parlor,

"Let me guess: missing persons and animal attacks?"

"Check and check, but there's something else. All of the victims were found inside their homes without their head... and their skin was desiccated."

Stefan contemplates for a moments before realizing, "Damon's feeding on vampires... "

Stefan flips open the folder Caroline gave him of her mom's evidence and looks at some of the crime scene images

"I shouldn't have let him go."

Caroline looks at him sympathetically, "No. Uh-uh. No, You are not turning Damon's roosting chickens into a Stefan Salvatore guilt trip. No one could've stopped him from going after Wes the other night."

"I guess Wes must have injected him with whatever he was going to give Elena that makes vampires feed on vampires."

"Ah. Good news, bad news. The bad news is that when this happened to Jesse, we had to kill him, but the good news is... I'm sorry, usually, there's some good news."

"I have to find him," he tells Caroline, "and Call Etta and Enzo they should be able to help get him back under control."

"No!" Kathelena interrupts, "...I mean well do we really need their help, I can come with you. Plus aren't things still tense between those three?"

"Elena, hey! I didn't know that you were here."

"Well, Stefan has been helping me study."

Caroline looks confused, "Oh? Stefan who doesn't go to college. "

Kathelena's jaw clenches, "Stefan, who's an expert in history."

"Uh-huh."

Stefan pulls out his phone and calls his sister:

"Etta? Yeah it's me"

....

"it's really great to hear your voice too"

...

"uh no its not about the invitation although of course, I will definitely be there"

....

"yeah"

...

"No its about Damon"

....

"Please! Just wait, I really need your help."  
  


**Etta POV:**

Our secluded safe little bubble was popped a few days ago when my brother Stefan reached out to not only me but Enzo as well which slightly surprised me.

Apparently Damon was jilted cruelly by the one he loves... even more fiercely then he had loved Katherine I am told, and now my troubled brother was not handling it well. Stefan told us he had gone off the rails and his careless behavior had resulted in him being injected with a virus forcing him to require increasing amounts of vampire blood to survive.

I had been planning on returning to Mystic Falls eventually if only to visit Stefan, now our timetable had just been moved up a bit. I was trying to iron out a plan that wouldn't put myself or Enzo in unnecessary danger but also save my brother.

Well, things are certainly about to get interesting. God, what I wouldn't give for boring.

 


End file.
